If you are an Atlanta Braves fan, your faith was understandably tested in Thursday’s blowout loss to the Phillies. Losing games is one thing, but serving up batting practice to Kyle Schwarber and losing by 15 runs to a division rival is absolutely brutal. Using Cal Quantrill was a bad way to start, but the entire Atlanta pitching staff was to blame for that atrocity and the Braves were quick to shake things up.
With the Braves bullpen (including position player Vidal Brujan) covering almost five innings on Thursday, Atlanta decided to bring up relievers John Brebbia and Nathan Wiles as fresh arms while sending Austin Cox and Wander Suero back down to Triple-A.
Braves call up John Brebbia and Nathan Wiles to reinforce Atlanta’s beleaguered bullpen
The arms Atlanta sent down to the minors make a ton of sense. Cox had been pretty good honestly, but Philly beat him up pretty bad and after throwing 68 pitches, he wasn’t going to be available out of the bullpen anytime soon anyways. As for Suero, there was a time that he was a decent reliever. Unfortunately, that time was 2020 and he had been dreadful in his five appearance stint with the Braves this season with a 11.37 ERA.
In exchange, the Braves brought up Brebbia who they reunited with in June in the hope that he could replicate his success down at Triple-A Gwinnett where he has posted a 1.89 ERA in 15 appearances. As a veteran bullpen arm that is playing well, it is certainly worth a shot. As for Wiles, he is likely a length option out of the bullpen as he has made a number of starts in the minor leagues and been largely effective in that sort of swing role.
Will this shuffling of the bullpen move the needle much? Not really, but anything is better than the effort we saw in the series opener. If the bullpen can actually get Schwarber out and keep the game reasonably close, that would be a massive improvement.
