The Braves don’t have a ton to play for over the final month of the season, outside of locking up the #1 seed in the NL. However, there are intriguing storylines.
The NL MVP race is set to be epic. Matt Olson is still eyeing the franchise record for home runs, set by Andruw Jones in 2005, who blasted 51 long balls. And the Braves could also potentially break the franchise record for wins in a season, currently held by the 1998 Braves, who won 106.
However, the most important storyline, as far as the current team’s World Series aspirations, is Kyle Wright. He began his rehab assignment last week and looked sharp, tossing 3 innings of scoreless ball with four strikeouts in High-A Rome. Today, he’s been transferred to Gwinnett, where he will make his second rehab start tonight.
RHP Kyle Wright’s rehabilitation assignment has been transferred from High-A Rome to Triple-A Gwinnett and he will start tonight against Memphis.
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) August 30, 2023
As always, the most important thing to monitor is Wright’s pitch count. My hope is they will let him throw around 50 pitches this time around. That would set him up to go for about 70 pitches next time out, and then the Braves could potentially make a decision from there.
The unfortunate thing about this situation is time. The Braves don’t have a lot of it with just one month left in the regular season. Typically, Kyle Wright would probably have at least 5 rehab starts before making it back to Atlanta. However, he needs to see some major-league opponents at least a few times if the Braves plan to use him in the postseason, so I expect them to be aggressive with Wright, even if he can’t give them a ton of length the first couple of times through the rotation.
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Photo: David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire
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