The Braves will tap Bryse Wilson to make Thursday’s start in Chicago.
It was assumed that Wilson was the leading candidate to make the open start, which was vacated upon Mike Foltynewicz's demotion to Triple-A Gwinnett over the weekend.
Wilson has caught fire in Triple-A, where he’s allowed two or fewer earned runs in seven of his past eight outings. He notched six scoreless innings, with seven strikeouts, in his latest start June 22 against Syracuse and has a 2.54 ERA over his past eight appearances, covering 46 innings.
“He’s right on time and coming off a really good outing,” manager Brian Snitker said. “He’ll get that start.”
The 21-year-old made his major-league debut for the Braves last season, when he pitched five shutout innings against the Pirates. He appeared in only two games afterward, but earned his way onto the opening-day roster with a strong spring.
Wilson has logged 4-1/3 innings at the major-league level this season (one start) and allowed four earned runs on five hits, striking out and walking four each.
It's unclear how the Braves will handle their rotation opening moving forward, but an impressive outing Thursday wouldn't hurt Wilson's odds at getting another look. Touki Toussaint and Kyle Wright (who is pitching at Gwinnett) also could make starts, though the team prefers Sean Newcomb in the bullpen.
Foltynewicz’s unreliability further weakened a rotation that hasn’t found much consistency. Julio Teheran has cooled off from his excellent stretch, and Max Fried has leveled out since a dominating in his first 10 outings.
Mike Soroka has been their most effective pitcher, though he'll exceed 80 innings in his next start and the team doesn't want to overuse him. The Braves signed Dallas Keuchel earlier in June to add a proven veteran innings-eater to the group.
Wilson, Wright and Toussaint will factor into the rotation and bullpen through the second half of the season.
