April 23: Atlanta formally announced the selection of both Carrasco and Ritchie. Fuentes was indeed optioned back to Gwinnett, and Dodd heads to the 15-day injured list. However, Dodd’s formal injury designation from the team was not an oblique strain, but rather “left thoracic spine inflammation.” The team’s initial announcement doesn’t provide a timetable for Dodd’s return, but manager Walt Weiss will probably provide more details in today’s pre-game media session.
April 22: The Braves are selecting veteran righty Carlos Carrasco onto the MLB roster, reports Mark Bowman of MLB.com. Left-hander Dylan Dodd will go on the 15-day injured list with an oblique strain. Carrasco will be available in long relief behind JR Ritchie, who is coming up to start tomorrow in his major league debut.
Atlanta already had two openings on the 40-man roster. They lost Osvaldo Bido on waivers to the White Sox over the weekend and designated Ian Hamilton for assignment this morning. Adding Ritchie and Carrasco will put their roster back at capacity.
The 39-year-old Carrasco will be in the big leagues for a 17th season. He made three starts for Atlanta last summer as part of a revolving door of depth arms while the rotation was decimated by injury. Carrasco allowed 15 runs across 13 2/3 innings and finished the season in Triple-A. The Braves brought him back on a new minor league deal at the beginning of the offseason.
Carrasco is out to a nice start with their top affiliate in Gwinnett. He carries a 1.71 earned run average through his first four appearances. Carrasco has fanned 21% of opposing hitters with a sub-6% walk rate. He’s only in the 90-91 mph range on his fastballs, leaning more heavily on his slider and changeup to compensate.
The arsenal hasn’t played at the MLB level for the past few seasons. Carrasco owns a 6.36 ERA between four teams since the start of the 2023 campaign. Atlanta needed a length option for a bullpen that has gotten a lot of work over the past couple days.
Their last two starters, Reynaldo López and Didier Fuentes, threw a combined four innings. While Ritchie is a very good prospect, he’s not a lock to work deep in the game in his first outing against a big league lineup. He’ll take on a Nationals team that has started the season hot offensively behind fantastic months from James Wood and CJ Abrams. Excluding the just optioned Fuentes, Ritchie and Carrasco have been Atlanta’s two best Triple-A starters.
Seems like a reach here. lst.
He’s been cooked for a few years.
How does he keep getting chances?
Wow. Does this mean Carlos Zambrano is next?
Lest we forget Casey Lawrence or Jesse Chavez.
Do the Braves need some slop work? I mean, Cookie is basically just a body to throw at this point…
An insurance policy in case Ritchie stinks it up. somebody has to pitch 9 innings.
I really don’t get why he is playing anymore there just isn’t anything left in him at the major league level. Decent at AAA but probably will get torched and DFA’d by next week at the latest.
He’s probably making more than i ever will, that’s a decent reason why he’s still playing. 🤔
This is what you end up with when so many P s are injured and ones that aren’t pitch like they are.
If you’d asked me “is Carlos Carrasco in AAA or dead,” I’d have probably guessed wrong.
Throwing the ball well, Carrasco rides again.
Surely Atlanta has an arm in that system that’s even slightly livelier than Carrasco’s
right now he has been one of their better AAA pitchers and also Cookie seems to like it in atlanta and will be another Martin Perez. DFA and resign in 2 or 3 days and back in the majors if needed by next week.
They have some like Wilson and Caminiti but not ready yet .
All right, Cookie!
If you just need innings regardless if quality get Jordan Lyles outta retirement
Dont read too much into this. Carrasco is only up in case Ritchie pitches like Fuentes did last night. The Braves bullpen has been taxed over the last few days because Lopez and Fuentes didn’t pitch very long. Dodd was just put on the IL and the Braves need another multi inning pitcher for today.
Exactly Skyrider.
Carrasco is just there to mop up.
In a “perfect world”, the offense goes off today, Ritchie goes 6 and a win, and Carrasco pitches 7-9 for the save. Then the Braves bullpen resets and gets rest for this weekend vs the Phillies.
My “perfect world” scenario wasn’t even as good as what actually happened LOL!
Ritchie 7 innings. Lee pitched 1 and Carrasco pitched 1 scoreless inning.
Maybe it should be “Cooked” Carrasco instead of “Cookie”…😉
Braves need at least six innings total from Ritchie and Carrasco today because of the previous two games so we’re likely to see Cookie…..and likely to be DFA’d after the game.
Dylan, the Nats hardly knew ye.
Cookie is back on the menu, boys.
Deryl Dodd>Dylan Dodd
Braves pitching depth has already been super testing and over-performing. We are officially pass what we can call reasonable depth and praying any arms we throw out there beyond JR will survive long enough until some health comes back. We prob need about another month of getting by and then perhaps some of our guys will be back to rebuild that depth
left thoracic spine inflammation? I rather have an oblique strain.
I expected some kind of phantom IL stint for Dodd, but “left thoracic spine inflammation” sounds a bit scary:/