If you’re the Braves, you didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. On a Sunday when losing would have meant slipping back to third in the NL East, they won in a way they hadn’t in a while. For the first time since June 15, they scored nine runs. For the first time since May 26, Matt Olson had a three-RBI game. But, these being the 2024 Braves, they saw yet another player booked for a diagnostic procedure.
If you’re the Braves, Monday brought gladder tidings. Reynaldo Lopez’s MRI showed nothing amiss. He mightn’t miss a start. He won’t join Max Fried on the injured list.
Lopez, an improbable All-Star, left Sunday’s game after three innings. He was sent back to Atlanta – his mates flew to Milwaukee – to determine if the twinges in his right elbow are no more than twinges. This happened as Lopez, not for the first time, took official leadership for having the lowest ERA in MLB, which is a tale unto itself.
The Braves had been careful with Lopez, who’s 30 and working for his fifth big-league club. When they acquired him last November, he’d started 18 games since 2019, none since June 2022. Only twice this season has he started on four days’ rest, which for most starters would constitute full rest. Only twice in those 19 starts has he logged more than six innings.
Such caution is why Lopez’s ERA – it’s 2.06 – has become a now-you-see-it/now-you-don’t entity. To qualify for ERA leadership, a pitcher must average at least one inning for every game his team has played. Sunday’s game was the Braves’ 104th. Sunday’s three innings brought Lopez to 104-2/3. As of this morning, he leads all of baseball in the pitching category that matters most. As of tomorrow, he won’t. Yes, we digress.
Tonight’s projected starter is Grant Holmes, who has never started a big-league game. He’d become the 13th different starter deployed this season, and it’s still July. Wednesday’s scheduled starter is Chris Sale. Tuesday’s – at last check, Tuesday comes before Wednesday – was unspecified as of Monday noon. It has since been learned that Bryce Elder had again been summoned from Gwinnett.
Tuesday marks the trade deadline. For some anxious moments, the GM whose deft offseason acquisitions of Sale and Lopez were meant to bolster a skimpy rotation, appeared to have been complicated in the way this season has been complicated since Day 1. With Lopez not going on the IL, the Braves don’t necessarily need another starting pitcher, which makes Alex Anthopoulos’ job a tad easier, which isn’t to say easy. This is 2024. Nothing has come easy.
On March 29, catcher Sean Murphy tweaked an oblique. He wouldn’t play again until May 27. And so it began.
Spencer Strider’s final pitch of 2024 was thrown April 6. Ronald Acuna’s final at-bat of 2024 came May 26. Michael Harris has been on the IL for six weeks. Ozzie Albies figures to be out until late September. Infielder Whit Merrifield, last week’s emergency signing, has done nothing except pinch-run; during his first pregame practice as a Brave, he suffered a hand injury that required stitches.
The Braves are 37-39 since April. Their cushion atop the wild-card standings has thinned. Six of their next 10 games are against the always-good Brewers. The hitting, historically great last season, has become unhistoric: The Braves rank 21st among 30 MLB clubs in runs. Last season’s undoing – the lack of starting pitching – had become this year’s strength. Saw that coming, did you?
It was just the other day – literally, it was Friday – when we wondered if this stop/start season was beyond fixing. Even with a healthy Lopez, Anthopoulos is duty-bound to offer this roster something in the way of reinforcement. Anything beyond a garden-variety outfield bat or the usual bullpen relief could command too dear a price.
Let’s spare a thought for Lopez, one of the Braves’ best additions of this or any century. The Braves signed him for $30 million over three seasons, which seemed a bit much for a reliever. They saw him as more than a reliever. Given the chance, he has become a superb starter. Through 104 games, he leads this team in WAR. Saw that coming, did you?
The Braves needed Lopez this season, and they’ll need him beyond it. (Hence the three years.) The 2025 rotation mightn’t include Fried or Charlie Morton. Strider is coming off surgery. Sale could well win the Cy Young, but he’ll turn 36 in March.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but much was riding on this MRI. That “whew” you just heard emanated from the GM’s suite in The Battery.
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