Alex Wood had been scheduled to make at least one more start in Triple-A Gwinnett before Gavin Floyd fractured his pitching elbow. Now he’ll continue “stretching out” against the Astros Wednesday night instead, pitching in place of Floyd.
Wood went five innings and 73 pitches, allowing one run, in his last start for Gwinnett. He returns to the mound for his first major league start since May 4, eager to use the 90-95 pitches he would have gotten in his next minor league outing, to work a quality start for the Braves.
“That’s what I’m shooting for, going out there and putting up a quality start and giving us a chance to win,” said Wood, who made the most of his two outings in Gwinnett. “I only got two down there, but felt good, worked on a few things, got back into a routine.”
Ryan Buchter was optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett and Wood officially recalled after Tuesday’s game.
Wood had spent six weeks in the Braves bullpen after Floyd returned from Tommy John surgery. He’s acknowledged that he’s more comfortable in a starting role, and he thinks the time in Gwinnett’s rotation allowed him to continue to get a better feel for his change-up again.
That’s a pitch that has been Wood’s primary “out” pitch over the course of his career, but one that he lost a feel for after he put so much emphasis on refining his breaking ball.
Wood began throwing a knuckle curve, similar to the one thrown by Craig Kimbrel and Jonny Venters, and had seen good results with it earlier this year. But it wasn’t until his final relief appearance on June 8 in Arizona that he started to get his feel back for his change-up.
“It’s the first time in my life I haven’t had that changeup whenever I needed it, whenever it wanted it,” Wood said. “I was just trying to work through it and really that last appearance out of the pen in Arizona I felt like I kind of figured it out. It was really good my two starts down in Gwinnett, so I’m excited to get all three going tomorrow. I like to think I can use both of them now (curveball and change-up) for out pitches. A lot of it depends on who you’re facing. It’s nice to kind of be able to go back and forth with the both of them.”
