The Braves announced Tuesday that they’ve selected the contract of lefty José Suarez from Triple-A Gwinnett. Catcher Sean Murphy, who underwent season-ending hip surgery recently, was moved to the 60-day IL to open a spot on the 40-man roster. Atlanta also recalled righty Nathan Wiles from Gwinnett and optioned righties Connor Seabold and Alexis Díaz to Triple-A in a series of corresponding moves.
Suarez will make a spot start in Game 1 of today’s doubleheader in Washington. He’ll be opposed by Nationals righty Jake Irvin, who has struggled to a 5.70 ERA over 30 starts. There’s a much more exciting pitching matchup with Chris Sale and MacKenzie Gore squaring off in the nightcap.
Atlanta acquired Suarez from the Angels in a swap for Ian Anderson at the end of Spring Training. The 27-year-old southpaw began the season in Brian Snitker’s bullpen. He tossed 7 1/3 innings over three appearances, allowing three runs (two earned) with seven walks and five strikeouts. Atlanta designated him for assignment and ran him through outright waivers at the end of April.
Suarez has spent most of the season on the minor league injured list. He has been limited to nine appearances (eight starts) with Gwinnett, where he has pitched to a 3.53 ERA over 43 1/3 frames. Suarez has punched out 28% of opponents with a sub-5% walk rate. That earns him at least his first MLB start of the season, and it’s possible he’ll stick on the big league roster in long relief for the last two weeks. Suarez will be controllable through arbitration if he finishes the season on the 40-man roster, though he’d likely be non-tendered.
Wrong Jose Suarez link, I think.
Wrong age and position. Definitely the wrong link when I checked.
That’s interesting, Alexis looked good his last two appearances. If he can cut his walks down the guy is useful.
Suarez has done ok at AAA so they want to give him a look.
What is the status of Ian Anderson at this point?
Unfortunately, his COPD limits his flute playing these days.
@paddyo:
What did he do with his aqualung?
@strange It was probably around a bit too much locomotive breath.
Probably best used in relief. Can pitch
To quote Major League, “Who are these guys?”.
I read this as Jesse Chavez and thought the circle was complete again.
As an Angels fan. I would have taken the braves public address announcer to get Suarez off the roster. I hate pitchers that give up runs and smile. Plus he walks way too many hitters. Anderson. Who cares. A minor league roster filler. I would rather have that than a 4A pitcher who gives up 6 runs in 4 hits 3 walks in just three innings.
The dude is another in a long line of Halo pitchers that are the next thing who just cannot pitch at the big league level. Once they learned to lay off his junk and wait for his 4 seamer with no movement his big league career was over.
There are those of us on the dark web that believe that Jose Suarez was the illegitimate child from Bartolo Colon and secret DNA results circulated through the not so hallowed Angels grounds.
Suarez is awful.
He wasn’t awful in 2021 or 2022. Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t fantastic either, but perhaps there were underlying factors in 2023 and 24 that resulted in his subpar performance.
He is still fairly young, and it is certainly within the range of possibilities that he still turns out to be a serviceable major league pitcher.