Braves Rumors: Great sign for Michael Harris II, no more bullpen games, Rockies trade target

Braves Rumors: Bullpen games proving to be untenable for Atlanta

With Dylan Dodd battling inconsistency in the minors along with Michael Soroka doing the same as he tries to make his way back from his battle with Achilles injuries, the Atlanta Braves have been left to try and find essentially any option to combat the injuries for Max Fried and Kyle Wright.

That has resulted in a handful of bullpen games. But the results haven’t been all too friendly.

On Saturday night in the middle of a three-game set with the Mariners, the Braves went with the bullpen game. They ended up taking a 7-3 loss to Seattle at Truist Park, spurned on after a big fourth inning in which Michael Tonkin gave up three runs (two earned) and put Atlanta in a hole that they were never able to dig out of. This comes about a week after the bullpen game against the Blue Jays also resulted in a loss, that one 6-5.

After the game, manager Brian Snitker talked about the viability of bullpen games moving forward for the Braves and it doesn’t sound like he’s a fan of that option to weather injuries either.

"“The only risk in these bullpen games is it’s got to go almost perfect,” Snitker said, via MLB.com’s Mark Bowman. “It’s hard to do that because you’re running so many guys out there, you don’t know when one of them might have an off day.”"

It’s clear that Snitker knows that bullpen games are not an ideal option for his club and the proof is most certainly in the results. So why has the Braves manager not been keen on bringing up the likes of Dodd and Soroka? He also told Bowman that the two current pitchers in Gwinnett have not strung enough starts together to feel confident in them.

At a certain point, though, something has to change with these bullpen starts because Atlanta has not performed well in them. Snitker appears to know that, and with Dodd reportedly a possibility to get the next start in this spot of the rotation, perhaps the loss to the Mariners was the last we’ll see of it.