Braves Learn Injury Fate of Waldrep, Update on Schwellenbach

The Atlanta Braves provided key updates on their two injured starting pitchers. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Gabe Burns, Spencer Schwellenbach underwent surgery to remove loose bodies from his elbow. Hurston Waldrep, who has already been confirmed to have a similar ailment, will have the same procedure on Monday.

Like Schwellenbach, Waldrep will head to the 60-day injured list. Neither has been given a timeline. The hope is that both will be able to return to action during the regular season. Either way, the team will have to be ready for a significant time without them.

"We all hope for that," manager Walt Weiss said on Wednesday when it came to knowing a timeline. "But you never know how these things go."

Both pitchers went down with injuries in the first week of pitchers and catchers reporting to camp. In similar fashion, both were supposedly fine and feeling good in their bullpen sessions until they weren't.

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The major bright side for the Braves is that neither had damage to a ligament. They already have AJ Smith-Shawver sidelined with a UCL injury that required Tommy John surgery. Grant Holmes is rehabbing a UCL tear that cost him half of last season, and Spencer Strider is still returning to form after his injury.

Not being able to give a timeline yet doesn't help their prospects for pitching this season, but anything worse would have guaranteed that we wouldn't see them again until 2027.

The irony is that both arms got their chances because of injured pitchers who were ahead of them. Now, others are going to get their shot because they went down.

Schwellenbach emerged during the 2024 season, putting on a solid rookie season that helped the Braves stay afloat and reach the postseason. Last season, he was on track to have a strong follow-up before he sustained a fracture in his right elbow. These elbow injuries are said to be unrelated.

Waldrep seemed like the frontrunner to take his teammate's spot in the rotation, but his hopes were nixed quickly. He got his chance to make an impact in the big leagues late last season as injuries piled up. Waldrep pitched to a 2.88 ERA across 10 appearances, nine starts.

The "relief" outing came during the Speedway Classic after the game was delayed and resumed the following day due to weather. It was essentially a start in everything but name only.

Chris Sale, Spencer Strider, Reynaldo Lopez and Grant Holmes have four of the rotation spots on lock at this time. The fifth spot will be decided during a competition in spring training. Some early favorites for the spot include Bryce Elder, JR Ritchie and Martin Perez. Joey Wentz is another arm who saw action as a starting pitcher last season.

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