WASHINGTON – Matt Wisler was the starting pitcher the first day he wore an Atlanta Braves uniform on Friday, when he toss eight extremely impressive innings in his major league debut to beat the Mets and ace Jacob deGrom.
He didn’t have a chance to take it all in on that adrenaline-fueled first day in a major league uniform, which ended with Wisler getting a celebratory beer shower from his new teammates, but since then the 22-year-old Braves prospect has had a chance to look around and appreciate his surroundings a bit.
He’s observed other players and how they prepare, and sat on the bench during games and talked with other pitchers about how they approach certain hitters. And, yes, he’s fielded a lot of interview requests.
“It’s been crazy,” said Wisler, who makes his second major league start Thursday against the Nationals. “Obviously the debut went as well as it could have gone. Since then I’ve just been kind of taking it all in. Being out there in the dugout, watching the game, taking in the stadiums. It’s still kind of hitting me that I’m up here. I’m still trying to do a job, but obviously it’s fun to take it all in.”
After handling all the anticipation and exceeding even the Braves’ rosiest expectations in his first start – eight innings, six hits, one run, no walks – it’s not as if his second start will be a laid-back affair. It never is when the Braves play their division rivals, particularly at Nationals Park.
And so, the team’s ballyhooed new pitching prospect will get his first crack at the National League East-leading Nationals, who entered Wednesday night’s middle game in the series with a six-game winning streak against the Braves.
Wisler will face veteran Doug Fister, who won 30 games over the previous two seasons. Fister, who finished eighth in the NL Cy Young Award balloting in 2014 – when Wisler was posting a 9-5 record and 5.01 ERA in 22 starts for the Padres’ Triple-A El Paso affiliate in his first stint above Double-A.
The Padres traded him to the Braves as part of the six-player deal that sent closer Craig Kimbrel and Melvin Upton Jr. to the Padres on the night before the season opener.
There were struggles last season at the Triple-A level, which is why Wisler said that spending more than two months at Triple-A Gwinnett proved beneficial. Wisler was a modest 3-4 with a 4.29 ERA in 12 starts at Gwinnett. But before getting roughed up in his last outing before the call to the majors, he had posted a 1.96 ERA over a stretch of nine starts, allowing only nine earned runs and 31 hits in 41 1/3 innings.
“It’s the first time I really had success for a while, at the Triple-A level,” he said. “It gave me that confidence to know that I could get through that, get through better hitters like that. Just more time to work on stuff, get my stuff right. I’m never going to start learning; I’m still only 22, so a long way to go. But just being down there, getting stuff in without really the pressure of performing up here.”
“Down there there’s not as much pressure. Obviously if I’d have struggled like that the first year up here, I probably would have been sent down. So just getting that out of the way down there, and now that I’m up here, hopefully throwing the way I can, I’m going to stay up here as long as possible.”
It might not have looked like he had trouble with anything in his first start, as Wisler made that eight-inning, 88-pitch effort look way too easy for someone so young and making his major league debut. But he did have some trouble, specifically with his slider. And that’s what he focused on in his between-starts bullpen session.
“Just tried to tighten up my slider a little bit,” he said. “I was just not finishing like I should, I left a couple out there, to (Michael) Cuddyer and one other guy. They hit it for singles on 0-1, 0-2 counts, where I should be burying those guys. So just kind of getting that back to being sharp. Staying strong on my front side, just working for consistency with everything.”
