Top Braves pitching prospect Matt Wisler is only 22 and gave up eight hits and seven earned runs in 3 2/3 innings in his most-recent start at Triple-A Gwinnett. So it’s not as if it’s a certainty that he’s ready for the big leagues or that this is the perfect time to bring him up.
That said, team officials are confident Wisler can handle himself, and that he’ll be better for it regardless of what happens. The prized right-hander will be brought up from Triple-A and make his major league debut Friday with a start against the Mets in a series opener at Turner Field.
He will fill the spot of Mike Foltynewicz, the hard-throwing rookie who was sent back to Triple-A after struggling in his past three starts.
Wisler, rated the No. 34 prospect in Baseball America’s preseason Top 100, came to the Braves as part of the six-player trade that sent Craig Kimbrel and Melvin Upton Jr. to the Padres on the night before opening day.
Wisler has a 3-4 record and 4.29 ERA in 12 starts at Gwinnett, with 49 strikeouts and 13 walks in 65 innings. Before his rough outing at Indianapolis on Friday, Wisler had posted a 1.96 ERA over his previous nine starts, allowing only nine earned runs and 31 hits in 41 1/3 innings.
He doesn’t have Foltynewicz’s overpowering stuff, but is a little more polished with a full repertoire of pitches.
“I’m not married to (Wisler) staying here,” said John Hart, Braves president of baseball operations. “I’m not worried if I have to send him back. Because we will have more information, (the young pitchers) will have more information. Johnny Sain always said it best – they’re always better the second time they come up.
“As tough as it was to send Folty out because you wanted to keep him, it was the right thing to do. And any young pitcher we bring up, we’re the land of opportunity. We bring them up because we think they can defend themselves up here, and there’s going to be a learning curve. And so we’ll manage that.”
The other most-likely possibility to replace Foltynewicz would’ve been prospect Manny Banuelos, but the left-hander pitched Tuesday for Gwinnett. Wisler’s regular turn would’ve been Wednesday, but Chien Ming-Wang came off the Gwinnett disabled list and started that game, so Wisler could make the start Friday for the big club.
Reliever Sugar Ray Marimon will be optioned back to Gwinnett to open a spot for Wisler.
Banuelos is 5-2 with a 2.29 ERA in 13 starts, with 63 strikeouts and 34 walks in 70 2/3 innings. The Braves got Banuelos from the Yankees in an offseason trade for relievers David Carpenter and rookie lefty Chasen Shreve.
“Their stuff doesn’t reach where Folty can go when he gets there,” Hart said of Wisler and Banuelos. “But these guys are wired a little differently, they have a little better handle on kind of who they are. So we’ll see. We’ll see how it pans out. I don’t have any great expectations, but I know this: When the year ends, we will have seen a number of these young guys that we feel they will be much better off as we go to look at 2016 and beyond. That’s how I feel about it.”
Foltynewicz was 3-2 with a 5.19 ERA in nine starts for the Braves before being sent down. They were his first major league starts, after he’d made 16 relief appearances for Houston last year in his first sting in the big leagues.
“Folty” showed flashes of dominance, particularly while posting a 1.88 ERA and .157 opponents’ average in consecutive starts against Milwaukee May 24 and at San Francisco May 29. He had 15 strikeouts and two walks with one homer allowed in 14 1/3 innings of those two games.
But after that he struggled, posting an 8.04 ERA and .402 opponents’ average in his last three starts before being sent down. He allowed 29 hits, four homers and four walks with 10 strikeouts in 15 2/3 innings over those last three starts against the Diamondbacks, Padres and Mets.
“I always looked at it this way,” Hart said. “I think in the long pull of it, for me, after watching Folty struggle in the spring, we knew there was some work to do. He got going, we had a need, so we brought him up. We watched him against Milwaukee and San Francisco, you’re going, wow. We got a glimpse of what was in there. And then the struggles he went through — I don’t think it’s a bad thing, because now he goes back knowing No. 1, he can do it. And No. 2, here’s what I need to improve on. Let’s go back, take a deep breath, I don’t have to do it under the gun
“So I think he has a chance to come back better because of that. And the same thing goes with any young pitcher we bring up. That first look at the triple-decker (stadium seating) and big-league hitters — it may not go perfect, there’ll be some ups and downs. But they’ll be better for it. They have to do it at some point.”
