Upon informing left-hander Donnie Veal on Tuesday that the Braves were designating him for assignment, manager Fredi Gonzalez told Veal he selfishly hopes he ends up back at Triple-A Gwinnett if he doesn’t catch on with another big-league club.
“If you stay in our organization, the way we have been kind of rotating those bullpen spots, you will be in that rotation,” Gonzalez said he told Veal.
The Braves have been churning through players in the back end of their bullpen this season. That’s because the Braves don’t have much quality, big-league ready depth at pitcher in the organization and also because their starting pitchers have had too many short outings (tied for fourth-worst in the majors in innings pitched per start entering Tuesday).
Those circumstances have led to a flurry of transactions as pitchers such as Veal, Sugar Ray Marimon, and John Cornely make their way to the Braves from Gwinnett and back.
“Ideally you’d like to have a bunch of guys out there you can stick with,” Gonzalez said. “But all of a sudden you run into a situation where you’ve got to cover three, four innings a night, it’s hard.”
Jason Grilli, Jim Johnson and Luis Avilan are the mainstays in the bullpen. Gonzalez said for “pieces that are interchangeable” the Braves will continue to look to Gwinnett for reinforcements.
