Despite consistently having a farm system ranked in the bottom 10 seemingly every season, the Braves continue to produce All-Star caliber talent from within. This year, that guy might be their No. 2 prospect, JR Ritchie.
The Braves called on him to make his MLB debut on Thursday afternoon almost out of necessity after Reynaldo Lópezand Didier Fuentes combined to cover just four innings over the previous two nights. But it’s not like he wasn’t deserving. Through his first four starts with the Gwinnett Stripers, he posted a minuscule 0.99 ERA — success that carried over into his first major-league appearance.
The outing didn’t get off to an ideal start — in fact, it couldn’t have gone much worse. Ritchie’s first pitch in the big leagues was blasted deep over the right field wall by James Wood.
In the grand scheme, giving up a solo shot isn’t a big deal. Wood leads all of baseball in home runs this season with 10 and has been all over Braves pitching throughout the series. But that’s not always something a 22-year-old making his debut can process in real time. Ritchie did.
He settled in and made it through seven innings, allowing just one more run — another solo shot to CJ Abrams — while striking out seven. Perhaps even more impressively, he did it on just 89 pitches. The Braves could have sent him back out there for another inning with how he was cruising, but with a four-run lead, Walt Weiss had no reason to push the rookie any further.
Offensively, it was another strong showing for Atlanta. Matt Olson, Michael Harris II, and Ozzie Albies each recorded three hits, with Albies launching the only home run to go along with four RBIs.
But it’s hard to talk about anything other than Ritchie. He showed up with a Max Fried-esque bulldog mentality, attacking a Nationals lineup that ranks second in baseball in runs scored.
Nothing exemplified that fearlessness more than his fifth-inning showdown with Wood. After falling behind 3-1 in a tie game, most young pitchers would have taken the walk and moved on. Ritchie didn’t — he challenged him with two straight pitches on the paint and struck him out looking.
In this game, you can have all the talent in the world, but it doesn’t matter until the mental side catches up. That’s usually the last thing to develop. For Ritchie, it looks like he’s already ahead of the curve, which should give the Braves plenty of confidence to hand him the ball again next week.
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(Photo by David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire)
