Atlanta’s 8-3 win over Miami on Saturday at loanDepot park offered a useful October reminder: with the rotation running thin because of injuries, the Braves may need their relief corps to cover far more than the usual late-inning assignments.
Manager Walt Weiss knows postseason pitching plans rarely resemble a normal regular-season script. Unless a club can roll out ace after ace, outs have to be collected differently in October. Chris Sale gives Atlanta one front-line starter, but the bullpen will carry a major share of the responsibility on days when Sale is not on the mound.
Suarez back in the bullpen picture
Robert Suarez’s return is especially important. Before right elbow discomfort sent the right-hander to the injured list near the end of June, he had posted a 0.56 ERA over 31 appearances. He missed roughly three months, but his first two outings back this week have not shown major signs of a long layoff.
Against Cincinnati on Wednesday, Suarez gave up a leadoff triple and then retired the next three hitters. He entered Saturday’s game looking as though he might breeze through a five-pitch seventh, but Miami found a way to stretch the inning.
Otto Lopez opened the frame with a slow chopper near home plate. Suarez fielded it, but his throw skipped once before reaching first baseman Matt Olson. Replay upheld the safe call. Heriberto Hernández followed with a triple into the left-field corner, and Suarez ultimately surrendered one run on two hits in an eight-pitch inning.
Velocity dipped, but the return still matters
The outing was not as crisp as the line might have suggested. Suarez’s four-seam fastball averaged 97.1 mph, below both his 98.7 mph season mark and the 98.6 mph average he showed Wednesday. None of the six swings against him produced a miss.
Still, the Braves have seen Suarez take the ball twice in one week after a lengthy absence, and that alone strengthens a group that could be asked to protect leads and bridge innings throughout the postseason. Atlanta cannot quickly repair its depleted starting depth, but a healthy Suarez gives Weiss another experienced arm for the kind of bullpen-heavy games October tends to create.
