{"id":746801,"date":"2026-04-23T03:51:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T03:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/746801\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T03:51:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T03:51:19","slug":"braves-to-select-jr-ritchie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/746801\/","title":{"rendered":"Braves To Select JR Ritchie"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Braves are promoting pitching prospect\u00a0JR Ritchie<\/a><\/strong> to start tomorrow afternoon\u2019s game against the Nationals, reports Harrison Smajovits of Sports Illustrated<\/a>. Mark Bowman of MLB.com<\/a> reports that Didier Fuentes<\/a><\/strong> is being optioned back to Triple-A Gwinnett in the corresponding transaction. Atlanta will also promote<\/a> Carlos Carrasco<\/a><\/strong> to work in long relief.<\/p>\n

Fuentes was just recalled this morning. He started this evening but labored over three innings, allowing seven hits and a walk. Fuentes\u2019 inefficiency forced the Braves to bring in\u00a0Mart\u00edn P\u00e9rez<\/a><\/strong> for long relief. The veteran southpaw tossed three innings of two-run ball, which obviously took him out of consideration to start tomorrow\u2019s ballgame.<\/p>\n

Atlanta needed a spot starter for the finale of their four-game set in Washington. Long relievers Jos\u00e9 Suarez<\/a><\/strong> and\u00a0Dylan Dodd<\/a><\/strong> each pitched on Tuesday, and Dodd is reportedly going on the injured list. A bullpen game would have been a lot to ask. Reynaldo L\u00f3pez<\/a><\/strong> only completed one inning last night, so every Braves reliever has pitched within the past two days.<\/p>\n

Ritchie was the logical candidate to take the ball. The 2022 supplemental first-round draftee has been Gwinnett\u2019s best pitcher in the early going. Ritchie has only given up three runs through his first 27 1\/3 innings while striking out 26.2% of opposing hitters. He has tiptoed around erratic command, as he\u2019s walked 13 batters and plunked four more.<\/p>\n

Although the 22-year-old isn\u2019t a finished product, he\u2019s likely to be up and down throughout the season as a key rotation depth piece. Baseball America<\/a> ranks Ritchie as the #2 prospect in the Atlanta system, crediting him with a deep arsenal and a chance to be a #4 starter. Ritchie has been in the 93-94 mph range with his four-seam fastball and sinker this season. He throws four distinct offspeed pitches \u2014 a changeup, cutter, slider and curveball.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s past the point at which Ritchie can reach a full year of service time in 2026. He was on the preseason Top 100 lists at each of BA, MLB Pipeline and ESPN. He therefore meets the threshold for the Prospect Promotion Incentive and could \u201cearn\u201d a service year if he finishes top two in Rookie of the Year balloting. The Braves would not receive an extra draft choice in that scenario because he wasn\u2019t on the MLB roster for 172+ days.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a decent chance this is a one-off appearance regardless. Ritchie will be the only healthy, optionable pitcher on their active roster aside from top setup man Dylan Lee<\/a><\/strong>. Atlanta has an off day on Monday. The Braves could option Ritchie after tomorrow\u2019s appearance to get an extra bullpen arm up for their weekend series against the Phillies. P\u00e9rez would be ready to start in the middle of next week. Spencer Strider<\/a><\/strong> probably only needs one more rehab outing before he returns to the rotation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Braves are promoting pitching prospect\u00a0JR Ritchie to start tomorrow afternoon\u2019s game against the Nationals, reports Harrison Smajovits…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":746802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[10],"tags":[126984,307470,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-746801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-didier-fuentes","tag-jr-ritchie","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116451992468973596","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=746801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/746802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}