Braves' latest electric call-up doesn’t solve their biggest problem

While Atlanta Braves fans have been thirsty for Hurston Waldrep for a while now, his call-up does not solve their biggest issue: This team can't hit worth a damn half the time. The former first-round pick out of Florida less than a year ago is slated to make his big-league debut in Sunday afternoon's series finale at the Washington Nationals. Atlanta needs a No. 5 starter badly, but what about their offense?

For as brilliant as the additions of Chris Sale and Reynaldo Lopez have been in the back end of the Braves rotation this year, the putrid Atlanta offense mustered just one run of support in Friday night's 2-1 loss to the Nationals, a team the Braves need to beat with greater regularity if they want any shot of catching the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL East race this year. So can Waldrep hit or not, brother?

Well, it doesn't matter if he can, because he is not going to. For as good as Waldrep may be in the No. 5 spot in the Atlanta rotation, he is not going to be giving himself run support in any of his starts going forward. The dude is a pitcher, and a promising one. However, we have to wonder what is up general manager Alex Anthopoulos' sleeve going forward. The offense he built is not good enough.

If Waldrep flourishes in the Atlanta rotation, this could make it even harder for them to trade for help.

We can only hope that Waldrep's first start with the team goes better than Spencer Schwellenbach's.

Hurston Waldrep might be able to pitch, but can he hit for the Braves?

It has been utterly maddening watching this offense underperform on a nightly basis. We may have come into the season with unrealistic expectations, but we all saw what the batting order was capable of only a year ago. The strikeouts are way up. So are the lazy pop-ups to the infield. While the Braves are still hitting the ball hard, the batted balls are not finding their way into the gaps like they used to.

Frankly, it is hard to get super jazzed up about Waldrep's recent promotion. It may be deserved, but it could be a tad premature. To me, it kind of feels like a distraction from what is really going on. This is all about putting out good news before Anthopoulos does what he needed to do yesterday and trade for some outfield help. I am sure he will come up with a star player of note, but things have been better...

The best thing that can happen for the Braves is if Waldrep goes on a tear like Spencer Strider did two years ago in his rookie year after getting called up. The only problem with that is Atlanta does not have a Michael Harris II in the minor league system to solve the offensive issues in the outfield. Right now, the last thing that needs to happen is for the Braves to ruin Waldrep like they did other pitchers.

Calling up Schwellenbach and AJ Smith-Shawver prematurely did big damage to their overall stocks.