The Atlanta Braves’ latest Spring Training adventure was more of a nightmare than a baseball game. It was a performance that made people wish they could simply wake up. That was the Braves bullpen in Clearwater against the Phillies. A whole bunch of arms got a shot, and it was not good.
The Bullpen Auditions, If You Can Call Them That
First up, we had Anderson Pilar, a Rule 5 Draft pick from the Marlins. And let’s just say if this was his audition for the big league bullpen, he might want to start looking up Miami real estate again.
Pilar’s outing was the baseball equivalent of stepping on a rake—repeatedly. He gave up a leadoff bomb to Trea Turner, walked three, and generally made a mess of things across two painful innings.
He threw about 50 pitches, which seems like a lot for a guy who’s supposed to be a bullpen arm. At this point, it’s hard to see the Braves keeping him around. But hey, maybe they had some secret success metrics for him that he miraculously hit. Who knows?
Rest of the Bullpen Not Much Better
The Braves were already down 5-1 when Pilar was mercifully pulled. Next up was Jonathan Hughes, a Spring Training innings eater who was basically just there because someone had to be. Unfortunately, his presence was more of a liability than a solution.
He managed to walk three, strike out exactly zero, and serve up a homer while getting just four outs. If he were on the official Spring Training roster, he’d probably get a one-way ticket to minor league camp right now.
Enyel de los Santos was one of the few guys who had flashes of competence. He actually struck out the side in his first inning of work. But then he decided to balance things out by giving up a home run and issuing a walk in his next inning.
Then there was Buck Farmer, who followed the trend with a perfectly symmetrical 2/2 K/BB ratio and another home run allowed. And finally, Landon Harper somehow managed to avoid giving up a homer but still allowed two runs because that’s just how things were going.
The Braves At Least Put Runs On the Board
The Braves did manage to put up nine runs, which sounds impressive until you realize how it happened. The lineup was a bit of a shrug emoji, and most of the runs came late in the game against Phillies pitchers who may or may not have been randomly selected from the stands.
Eli White and Bryan de la Cruz both hit doubles, and Connor Capel had a triple that was really just the result of a missed diving catch. Other than that? Not much. Six of those nine runs came in the eighth and ninth innings, and somehow, only one of them was driven in via an actual hit. The rest were bases-loaded walks, productive outs, and a wild pitch. It was offense, technically.
Braves Are On to the Next One
With this disaster in the rearview, the Braves are now sitting at an even .500 in Grapefruit League play, which makes no sense, considering the last two games have been straight-up bullpen carnage. Next up, they take on the Nationals, and it would be hard for the pitching to be worse than this.
