The Atlanta Braves have had one of the most talented roster in baseball over the last half-decade. The one main obstacle in their title hopes has been injuries.<\/p>\n
2026, meet the Braves.<\/p>\n
Today the Phillies\u2019 NL East rival placed starting pitcher Spencer Schwellenbach on the 60-day disabled list with bone spurs in his right elbow.<\/p>\n
This is yet another significant injury for a team that has dealt with its fair share over the past few years, particularly in its rotation.<\/p>\n
Last season, Schwellenbach was 7-4 with a 3.09 ERA in 17 starts before being shut down for the season with a fractured elbow. New Braves manager Walt Weiss said Schwellenbach\u2019s pre-spring training workouts were progressing well before this major setback.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was doing great,\u201d Weiss told mlb.com. \u201cHe was throwing bullpens, and everything was great. The last bullpen he threw was a week and a half ago or so, and it wasn’t great. That’s when the red flags went off. So we’re hoping for the best.<\/p>\n
In 2025, Bryce Elder was the only Braves starter to make more than 23 starts. Chris Sale missed 2 \u00bd months with a fractured rib cage; Spencer Strider had a hamstring injury that limited him to three starts through the end of May, after missing nearly all of the 2024 season due to elbow surgery. Grant Holmes\u2019 season was shut down at the end of July with a partial UCL tear, that did not require surgery.<\/p>\n
Now, Schwellenbach likely won\u2019t take a big-league mound for Atlanta until at least June.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always say, before a season even starts, your pitching depth is going to get tested,\u201d Weiss said. \u201cIt’s inevitable, you know. But you\u2019d rather not have it happen right away in February.\u201d<\/p>\n
For a division race that will be as hotly-contested as it has, perhaps in its history, between the Braves, Phillies, and Mets, losing a pitcher of Schwellenbach\u2019s quality is something Weiss and his team can ill afford.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Atlanta Braves have had one of the most talented roster in baseball over the last half-decade. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2397],"tags":[5,4,144,25,4216,40,16702],"class_list":{"0":"post-565314","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-phillies","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-philadelphia","11":"tag-philadelphia-phillies","12":"tag-philadelphiaphillies","13":"tag-phillies","14":"tag-phillies-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116049543572800148","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}