Wright pitches well in Braves' spring finale

Who would have ever believed March 12 would be the last day of spring training? Well, the Coronavirus has forced baseball to make a difficult decision to shut baseball down, at least for a while.

So, the Braves played their final game of the Grapefruit League season Thursday. And once again, they got a great starting pitching performance.

Kyle Wright allowed just one run on two hits in five innings, with one walk and three strikeouts. Wright’s earned run average lowered to 2.03, as he’s allowed just three runs on seven hits in 13.1 innings, with only three walks and 15 strikeouts.

Whenever the season begins, Wright will likely be in Triple-A, despite his outstanding spring. There’s just not room for Wright in the Atlanta rotation, at least not yet.

Mike Soroka (3.12 spring ERA), Max Fried (3.52), Mike Foltynewicz (5.14), Sean Newcomb (2.00) and Felix Hernandez (1.98) likely will make up the Atlanta starting rotation. And if the delay lasts long enough, Cole Hamels may not even be too far behind before he is ready to join the rotation.

When these logjams happen, the normal thing to say is, “Well, it’ll work itself out,” and granted that is what usually happens. But the Braves will start the season with tremendous depth, and yes, that depth is usually needed over the course of a full season.

Last season, 11 different pitchers started games for the Braves. It didn’t help that Foltynewicz was so bad he had to be sent to Triple-A. That was unplanned when the season started. It also didn’t help that Kevin Gausman had an ERA of 6.19 ERA in his 16 starts. That wasn’t planned, either.

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