The back strain that shortened Julio Teheran’s past two starts landed him on the 15-day disabled list Tuesday.
The Braves, their rotation already held together practically by glue and baling wire, decided it’s best to rest their All-Star pitcher a while in hopes of avoiding a recurring situation for the rest of the season.
The Braves announced late Tuesday that prospect Robert Whalen, 22, will be brought up from Triple-A to start Wednesday against the Pirates in his major league debut after pitching just 21 games above Single-A. He’s 0-1 with a 1.93 ERA in three starts at Triple-A Gwinnett after going 7-5 with a 2.49 ERA in 18 starts in Double-A.
Aaron Blair seems the most likely candidate to be brought back up from Triple-A to take Teheran’s next turn Friday, but the Braves have given no indication of how they’re leaning on that assignment.
Teheran pitched five innings and gave up three runs in his Saturday start against the Phillies. And given the state of the Braves’ injury- and trade-diminished rotation, the decision to place Teheran on the DL is an indication that his injury clearly made it necessary.
“Obviously I didn’t feel completely 100 percent, but I still went out there and competed like I always do,” Teheran said. “It wasn’t my best — when you see 87 miles per hour with the fastball, that’s not me. That’s one of the things, why we decided to rest a little bit.”
It’s the first DL stint for Teheran, 25, who’s in his fourth full season in the majors, and has been the Braves’ most durable pitcher, surpassing 200 innings in each of the previous two seasons.
He was diagnosed with tightness in the latissimus dorsi region behind and below his right shoulder after leaving a July 22 start at Colorado at the beginning of the fifth inning. His next start was pushed back two days after the Braves initially considered placing him on the DL.
“You could see (Saturday), you could read the velocity,” Braves interim manager Brian Snitker said, “and every now and then it would go up where it should be, but he was just grinding it through it, competing. And talking to him, we just kind of felt it’d be better to (go on the DL this time), make a rehab start just to make sure you’re back where you want to be.”
By placing him on the DL, the Braves can have Teheran shut down his throwing for a few days, then ease back in and make a rehab start before he returns to the rotation. They hope that’ll be in the minimum 15 days, but they won’t know more until he rests a few days and then resumes throwing.
In the meantime, rookie Joel De La Cruz will start in the Braves’ patchwork rotation after moving from the bullpen and pitching 4 1/3 scoreless innings Sunday.
Mike Foltynewicz, their Tuesday night starter against the Pirates, and rookie Tyrell Jenkins are the only certainties in the rotation, which has been hit by injuries and trades in the past week, and the demotion of Matt Wisler after his latest bad start Thursday.
Blair has pitched much better in his past couple of starts at Gwinnett after initially struggling when he was sent down for the second time. The Braves have no other obvious option to replace Teheran, since Casey Kelly is on Gwinnett’s DL with a back strain.
Rookie John Gant (oblique strain) made the first of three scheduled minor league rehab starts Tuesday, and Snitker indicated they would have him make those starts as planned despite the holes in the major league rotation.
Snitker said of the recent constant rotation shuffling, “It’s tough. Having five guys that are going to the post (every day) makes it kind of easy. This is what I’ve been doing for the last three years” as manager at Gwinnett, before his promotion to the major league job.
Losing Teheran for any length of time is a blow to the Braves, particularly given the current state of their rotation. He’s has a 3-9 record despite a 2.81 ERA and career-best 0.965 WHIP. Teheran’s run support — 2.87 runs per nine innings pitched — is the worst among major league starters.
Teheran pitched 200 2/3 innings in 33 starts last season after working a career-high 221 innings in 33 starts in 2014. One of his goals was to pitch at least 200 innings again this season, but that could be difficult now with the 15-day DL stint. He 134 2/3 innings in 24 starts this season.
