PHILADELPHIA — Starting pitching was seen as a potential early season obstacle for the Braves after they lost Kris Medlen and Brandon Beachy to season-ending elbow injuries three weeks into spring training.
That made it all the more impressive that the Braves, entering Wednesday, had a majors-leading 1.80 ERA from their starters, more than a half-run better than the second-ranked Oakland rotation (2.44).
It was a primary reason the Braves were 9-4 and held a 1 ½-game lead over Washington. The Nationals’ rotation, rated as one of baseball’s best before the season, ranked 26th with a 5.06 ERA before Wednesday.
The Braves have gotten strong work from mid-spring signee Ervin Santana and end-of-spring signee Aaron Harang, as well as incumbent starter Julio Teheran and second-year left-hander Alex Wood. Rookie David Hale also has a 2.89 ERA in two starts.
No Braves starter had allowed more than three earned runs in 13 games before Wednesday, and they allowed one or no runs in eight games.
The Braves plan to bring Mike Minor off the disabled list and insert him in the rotation April 23 or April 25, after the lefty makes one more minor league start Friday for Triple-A Gwinnett. He’s been building arm strength after missing time in spring training due to shoulder tendinitis.
Midway through spring training, Braves backup catcher Gerald Laird was asked about the Nationals being a popular pick to unseat the NL East champion Braves.
“We’re in the same spot as last year,” Laird said then. “We won the division. When we were healthy, we were really good – everybody was saying, ‘The Braves are still a really good team.’ But now everyone’s really picking the Nationals like they did last year. ‘Oh, they’ve got the rotation.’ Well you know what? They had the rotation last year. I’m not saying anything bad about them – that’s a great ballclub over there. But that’s why you play 162 games. You never know what’s going to happen.”
