The Braves have to keep reliever Dan Winkler on the 25-man roster only through Thursday to fulfill lingering Rule 5 Draft requirements, but the right-hander has pitched well enough to keep a spot regardless.
Winkler allowed just three hits and one walk with eight strikeouts in 5-1/3 scoreless innings over his first five appearances. He had a .158 opponents’ average for a bullpen that had a majors-leading .169 opponents’ average before Tuesday.
The right-hander pitched in half of the Braves’ first 10 games through Monday, which is what he wanted.
“That’s the way I like it -- it’s a lot easier that way, too,” said Winkler, who missed much of the past three seasons recovering from two major elbow surgeries. “Get a lot of reps that way and stay fresh. ... I feel great, best I’ve felt in a long, long time – since before I had Tommy John surgery. It’s good to finally be healthy.”
Braves relievers were third in the majors with a 1.33 ERA before Tuesday, and Winkler was one of four Braves who pitched in at least five of 10 games, along with Arodys Vizcaino (five), Peter Moylan (six) and Sam Freeman, who was tied for the majors lead with seven appearances.
“He’s going to get a lot of work,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said of Winkler. “He’s reliable, and I’m seeing a lot of the things why we liked him at the end of last year, too.”
Winkler missed much of 2016-17 seasons recovering from surgery to repair a broken elbow following a gruesome injury that occurred April 10, 2016, when his elbow fractured while delivering a pitch in his third appearance of the season and fifth appearance after coming back from Tommy John elbow surgery he had as a Rockies minor leaguer in 2014.
The Braves took him in the December 2014 Rule 5 Draft, and it’s taken this long for Winkler to get to the point where the full-year-on-the-major-league-roster part of the Rule 5 requirements can be fulfilled, and the Braves would no longer have to offer him back to the Rockies before they could send him to the minors. Not that they’re thinking of sending him down, not as long as he keeps pitching like he has.
“He’s kind of gotten better as the spring’s progressed,” Snitker said. “He didn’t throw the ball real well early in camp, and then the last couple of times here it’s just getting better and better. He’s gotten settled in, and for whatever the reason the stuff is starting to pick up like I remember it being at the end of last year. Now it’s just a matter of him getting the repetitions.”
One thing that’s not changed with Winkler through the years of rehab is his proclivity for strikeouts. He got them at a high rate as a promising starter in the Rockies organization – he had 246 strikeouts in 227 innings over his final 1-1/2 seasons before his first elbow surgery – and is still piling them up today, with eight of his 16 outs before Tuesday coming via strikeouts.
“Yeah, I pretty well go for my strikeout.” He said. “I don’t know what it is, maybe higher spin rate, throwing the ‘invisi-ball’ as they used to say when I was in the minor leagues, the rise ball. I have a lower arm slot; not a lot of guys see that. (Strikeouts) are just something that I try to keep up.”
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