Braves’ Hurston Waldrep roughed up in his second start of 2026

PITTSBURGH — Hurston Waldrep, who was expected to compete for a permanent spot in the starting rotation before the season began, has made three appearances with the Braves since his return from February elbow surgery.

There has been some good. There has been some bad. There was much more of the latter Tuesday at PNC Park.

Yes, Waldrep allowed seven runs, all coming on two home runs — a grand slam and a three-run shot — by Pirates first baseman Ryan O’Hearn. But there were also five walks. Waldrep began his outing by hitting Pirates leadoff batter Jake Mangum. The Pirates hit three balls more than 100 mph off the bat; nine topped 90 mph.

Between his sinker and his splitter, two of Waldrep’s go-to offerings, the Pirates swung and missed just once.

Waldrep lasted only 3⅓ innings yet threw 84 pitches. Only 53.6% of those were for strikes.

“Pretty frustrating, obviously, to feel like you kinda took a step back there, especially in the rehab process where you feel like you’re making strides and getting back to the version that, obviously, I want to be and this team needs. That’s pretty frustrating for me personally,” Waldrep said. “But obviously something that I will strive to be better (at) and continue to build on and continue to grow and just take it into this next week.”

To be fair to Waldrep, Tuesday’s start was just his 13th in the majors. And there is some grace afforded after the right-hander missed the season’s first three months.

But the tough pill to swallow is that the Braves are in a current funk of mediocre baseball, and having a highly regarded young pitcher trying to find himself as the team’s NL East lead has shrunk to two games is, well, awfully inconvenient.

There also isn’t much choice, either, given that Spencer Strider is out at least another month, Martín Pérez is on the shelf after getting hit with a line drive Sunday, Spencer Schwellenbach has yet to begin his rehab assignment, rookie JR Ritchie has been too inconsistent to lock down a starting role, and A.J. Smith-Shawver has pitched only twice at Single-A Augusta in his comeback from Tommy John surgery.

The Braves (52-38) have five games remaining before the All-Star break, meaning Waldrep is in line to make one more start — sometime this weekend in St. Louis — if the club chooses to give him that opportunity.

“Those are conversations as you move forward,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said. “It’s a numbers game. Those conversations about the rotation are almost day-to-day for much of this year. I think it’ll continue to be that way.”

Waldrep has made three appearances in less than a month. He debuted June 26 in San Francisco when he came out of the bullpen, he started Thursday against the Cardinals and was back on the bump Tuesday. He has an 8.44 ERA over 10⅔ innings and has walked 10 batters and given up three home runs.

Before his return to the majors, Waldrep made five rehab starts between the Florida Complex League, Double-A and Triple-A. He issued 11 walks in those games and was charged with six earned runs in 15⅓ innings.