MIAMI — The end of reliever Scott Proctor’s Braves career triggered the much-anticipated arrival of flamethrower Arodys Vizcaino, a top prospect called up Wednesday from Triple-A Gwinnett.
The Braves released Proctor and summoned Vizcaino, a 20-year-old right-hander with a fastball that has been clocked as high as 101 mph. He arrived at Sun Life Stadium about two hours before Wednesday night’s series finale against the Marlins.
Vizcaino was 5-5 with a 3.06 ERA, 100 strikeouts and 28 walks in 97 innings this season at three minor-league levels, including eight strikeouts with no walks and one earned run in seven relief innings for Gwinnett. He made a good impression on some Braves at spring training.
“He was throwing 100 [mph] this spring,” reliever Jonny Venters said. “I didn’t get to see him pitch a lot, but there’s no doubt that he has an electric heater. I don’t know about his other stuff, but I heard he’s got a good breaking ball.
“And he seemed like a real good kid. I’m pumped. He’s going to help.”
Vizcaino is the youngest of the Braves’ “big four” group of pitching prospects that includes Julio Teheran, Mike Minor and Randall Delgado. He generally is ranked as the second-best prospect of the group, slightly behind Teheran.
“I saw enough of him in the spring that I liked him,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said, “and our reports say he’s been outstanding.”
The Braves finally cut the cord with Proctor, 34, who had a 6.44 ERA in 31 appearances this season and was 1-3 with a 9.16 ERA and .329 opponents’ average in his last 18 games.
Signed as a free agent after the 2009 season, Proctor never regained effectiveness after two elbow surgeries forced him to miss all of the 2009 season with Florida.
“It just didn’t happen,” Gonzalez said. “Hopefully he gets another opportunity, which I think he will because he still throws the ball pretty good.”
Proctor finished with a 6.43 ERA in 37 appearances over parts of two seasons with the Braves. The final straw came Monday against the Marlins, when he entered in the ninth inning with an 8-3 lead and gave up two walks and a two-run homer.
The Braves had to bring in closer Craig Kimbrel to get the final two outs.
Now Proctor has been cleared out, and the Braves added a young power arm to a bullpen that can use reinforcement for the workhorse trio of Kimbrel and lefties Venters and Eric O’Flaherty.
Vizcaino, a former New York Yankees prospect, made 17 starts before being moved to the bullpen in early July. The Braves said at the time that it would help them limit his innings, since was on pace to far surpass his previous career-high workload.
The muscular 6-foot Dominican is not as slender as many Latin pitching prospects his age.
Vizcaino has been a starter for most of four minor-league seasons and could be again in the future. He’s still developing a change-up to go with his outstanding fastball — typically it’s in the 94-96 mph range — and sharp curveball, and for now he seems best suited for the bullpen.
He began the season in high-Class A Lynchburg after missing most of the second half of last season with a partially torn elbow ligament that didn’t require surgery. That injury raised caution flags, but Vizcaino was back pitching by the end of the season.
He pitched an impressive inning at the Futures Game during All-Star weekend in Phoenix, where he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that his elbow had been fine all season and was no longer an issue.
Vizcaino was the Yankees’ third-best prospect before being traded to the Braves in the December 2009 deal for Javier Vazquez.
