Torey Lovullo Keeps the Mood Light With His Pitching Staff

What would a positional lineup made up of only the pitching staff look like? What about the batting order? Would Merrill Kelly get to hit ?

Last night and this morning Torey Lovullo and Zac Gallen talked about some fun conversations the manager has been having with the pitching staff. The manager constructed a postional lineup made entirely of pitchers. Gallen feigned outrage and chagrin to have been placed at second base instead of shortstop, which went to Scott McGough. The full lineup he created was as follows

C-Bryce Jarvis, 1B- Tommy Henry, 2B- Zac Gallen, 3B-Ryne Nelson, SS- Scott McGough, LF- Joe Mantiply, CF- Kyle Nelson, RF- Miguel Castro. Merrill Kelly, Kevin Ginkel, Brandon Pfaadt and Luis Frias were "on the bench".

Lovullo was asked this morning if he were to put together a batting order what that might look like. With a wry smile Lovullo said that the pitchers want that out quickly. Chuckling he gave the diplomatic answer by stating he hadn't seen a lot of the guys hit, but that Gallen would be the leadoff hitter. The diplomacy stopped when discussing Merrill Kelly's hitting however. Kelly went 1-52 at the plate in 2019 and then 3-47 in 2021, for a career 4-99, .040 batting average.

With laughter ringing through the interview room Lovullo said "That was tough to watch. That was really tough to watch. That's why he's on the bench, cuz he can't hit."

On a more serious note, Lovullo is still noncommittal about whether Randall Grichuk will be activated and available for the Atlanta Braves series that starts on Friday. Grichuk will DH today for the Reno Aces, playing back-to-back games for the first time in his rehab assignment. Asked if that was the last box to check, Lovullo hedged.

"I would say that's one of the boxes, the other one is how he recovers, how he feels with his movements, both on the bases and in the field. We're just getting really good input from him. I had a conversation with him yesterday. He shared a few of the things that he's feeling very comfortable with and a couple of things he's not dealing with but just working through to make sure that he's going to recover. So he's in a really good spot, but yes, back-to-backs are big issues for everybody when they're on their rehab train."

Alek Thomas is in the early rest and treatment phase of his recovery from his hamstring injury and has not begun any running. In the course of the discussion, Lovullo mentioned that they have learned their lesson due to Ketel Marte's hamstring struggles in the past.

"I think we learned a valuable lesson a couple years ago with Ketel where he had reoccurring issues, because were asking him to come back, we thought he was ok, he thought he was ok, it was agreed upon. But if we had waited three or four extra days the first time what would that have meant? Would he have lasted a whole season without feeling discomfort back there. That's the main objective here. On the front side even though even though we miss [Thomas] if we can knock it out and take care of it for the rest of the year thats definitely going to be the goal."