Braves lose Spencer Schwellenbach to IL with fractured elbow

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ATLANTA — Spencer Schwellenbach was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a fractured pitching elbow Wednesday, the latest gut punch for a struggling Atlanta Braves team that’s been besieged by injuries for the second year in a row.

One day after the Braves transferred reigning Cy Young Award winner Chris Sale to the 60-day IL with a fractured rib cage, his co-ace joined him on Atlanta’s crowded list of injured players, which already included starting pitchers Reynaldo López (shoulder surgery) and AJ Smith-Shawver (Tommy John surgery).

“I mean, that sucks,” said Schwellenbach, 25, who had emerged as an elite pitcher in just his second MLB season and now isn’t a certainty to pitch again this year. “Sale went down and as a staff we knew we had to kind of pick up some slack, and now this happens. I feel horrible.

“I set a goal for myself to be healthy and throw a bunch of innings, and it just really sucks.”

The Braves hope that Schwellenbach can return in September, but won’t have a timetable for his recovery until the bone heals and he can resume throwing.

Schwellenbach is 7-4 with a 3.09 ERA in 17 starts and leads NL qualifiers in strikeouts-to-walks ratio (6.0). He ranked third in the NL in innings (110 2/3), 11th in strikeouts (108) before Wednesday and was a solid candidate for an All-Star berth.

“I hate it for him,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “The way he’s going, the confidence that he has, what he’s bringing to our club. The consistency in the starts and all that — he just keeps getting better. And it’s tough for anybody when they go through that. I always hate it for the individual more than us, quite honestly.”

Schwellenbach will be shut down for about four weeks and then be reexamined, at which point the skidding Braves would have to decide whether it’s worth having their young standout push to get back for a potential postseason drive.

“It’s very unfortunate,” Braves star Ronald Acuña Jr. said through an interpreter. “Obviously when you’re starting to put together a season like the one he was putting together, you hate to see it happen. But injuries are a part of the game. I think from our perspective, all we can do is hope for a speedy recovery from him.”

If Schwellenbach doesn’t feel good in about a month, he knows he might not pitch again in 2025 and would instead focus on rehabbing the elbow and preparing for next season. He fractured the coronoid bone in his elbow, and doctors said it was a freak injury and could have happened for any number of reasons.

Schwellenbach believes his recent uptick in velocity — his fastball reached 100 mph for the first time on his 25th birthday, May 31 — might have led to the fracture, which he characterized as a stress fracture or “small, small fracture.”

“Maybe just the elbow wasn’t ready for it,” Schwellenbach said. “But who knows, like they said, it could have been anything.”

He showed no signs of ailment in his Saturday start against the Philadelphia Phillies, when Schwellenbach had a season-high 12 strikeouts in seven innings and allowed just three hits, one run and one walk. He was 6-1 with a 2.60 ERA in his past 10 starts and had 71 strikeouts with 11 walks in 69 1/3 innings in that torrid stretch.

He threw 90 pitches and told Snitker he wanted to go back out to pitch the eighth, a request that was denied.

“During the game, the second or third inning or whatever, I started feeling what I thought was tightness at the time,” said Schwellenbach, a former college shortstop and closer who had Tommy John surgery after the Braves drafted him in the second round in 2021. “I’ve pitched through a lot. I pitched with a torn UCL in college, and it wasn’t that (type of soreness). I just thought it was tightness.

“So I went as far as I could, and they took me out of the game. I was in the training room after and was just like, man, this feels really tight. Then woke up the next day, and I was like whoa, this is a little bit more than tightness. I came in, we talked about it, and decided to get some imaging.”

He had an MRI on Monday that revealed the fracture.

Atlanta has lost five of its past six games to slip to fourth place in the NL East and ninth place in the wild-card standings, 11 games out of first in the division and 7 1/2 games behind the third and final wild-card spot before their Wednesday night game against the Los Angeles Angels.

Prospect Didier Fuentes, who turned 20 two weeks ago and is the youngest player in the majors, made his third start for Atlanta on Wednesday and lugged a 10.80 ERA into the game. He was supposed to make only a spot start at Miami on June 20, but that changed after Sale was diagnosed with two small fractures in his ribs that resulted from a May 18 diving defensive play he made in the ninth inning of a shutout bid that fell one out short.

Just when things look like they can’t get any worse….

“It’s getting worse,” Snitker said. “That (Schwellenbach injury) was a tough one. I think we started the year with five (starters) and lost four. It’s just hard in any organization to cover that depth. So, yeah, it seems like every day it’s something else. But we just gotta hang in there and give guys opportunities.

“I always say it’s an opportunity for somebody to do something really good. We’re gonna still come to the ballpark and fight the fight every day and prepare and go out there and win a ballgame.”

Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos could make a trade or two to add starting pitching, and unless and until he does, the Braves will likely choose from in-house candidates, including prospect Hurston Waldrep or Triple-A teammates Nathan Wiles, Davis Daniels and Jackson Stephens, among other minor leaguers and prospects.

“I keep looking and asking Alex,” Snitker said. “Double A on up (are candidates), really. Hopefully somebody might (be ready). We’re pushing young guys all the time and may end up that we have to do it again. We’ll just assess the whole situation day-to-day and see where we’re at.”

(Photo: Brett Davis / Imagn Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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