The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Braves eye return of young arms
The Braves soon could be bolstered by the returns of two young arms.
Luiz Gohara is on the bereavement list while he visits his ailing mother in Brazil. Mike Soroka is on the disabled list after experiencing soreness in his pitching shoulder.
The Braves are hopeful to have both players back within the next week.
Soroka will make his first, and possibly only, rehab start with Single-A Rome today. The Braves will evaluate him afterward, but if all goes well he could rejoin the team during its California road trip.
“He’ll do his three or four innings tomorrow, then check him out afterward
and see what happens,” manager Brian Snitker said.
Soroka has made three starts, accumulating a 3.68 ERA with 15 strikeouts against four walks in 14-2/3 innings, before the injury.
Gohara’s situation is a little less clear. Snitker isn’t privy to the details of his status, and given the lefty passed the oneweek maximum of time on the bereavement list Thursday, he likely would need to be placed on the restricted list.
Snitker hopes Gohara will rejoin the team this weekend. He’ll throw a side session upon his return, and the Braves will determine how to move forward.
Before leaving for Brazil, Gohara made his first start of the season against the Phillies on May 23. He allowed two runs, striking out six and walking four in four innings.
Gohara made three relief appearances before the start. Snitker is unsure how the team will use him moving forward, and much of that will depend on how he looks after over a week’s absence.
“I don’t know that we’ll do that (rotation) or put him back in bullpen,” Snitker said. “We’ll wait and see. It’d be tough right now to throw a bullpen, start a game. He’ll need to work back up again after being off for eight, nine days, whatever it’s going to be.
“We’re going to wait until we see him and go from there. I want (pitching coach) Chuck (Hernandez) and (bull- pen coach) Marty (Reed) to put him through the paces throwing a bullpen first.”
Also closing in on a return is reliever Jose Ramirez, who has been on the disabled list since April 18 with inflammation in his pitching shoulder.
Ramirez has been rehab- bing at extended spring train- ing in Florida. He’ll throw a live batting practice session today. “He’s been doing good,” Brian Snitker said. “He feels good, pitches really good. … (We hope to) get him back to where he was. And we should have a good chance at doing that, but until he faces hitters, we’ll just have to wait.” Ramirez last pitched April 17, when he was hit for four runs against the Phillies in the 10th inning, leading to a 5-1 Braves loss. He cited shoulder soreness after the game, and Snitker confirmed Ramirez had been battling through an unknown injury. In his last two appear- ances before going on the DL, Ramirez gave up nine runs and walked five (1-1/3 innings). He had more walks
(eight) than strikeouts (seven) in 6-1/3 innings.
“They shut him down, wanting to get on top of it,” Snitker said. “All reports are good, so that’s good. But until you get out there and start facing hitters, you just never know. That’s why you can plan things, but until they do it, or how they are the next day, it really doesn’t matter.”
A healthy Ramirez could be a boost to the Braves bullpen. Despite his underwhelming numbers in 2018, Ramirez was an asset to the unit a year ago.
The 28-year-old posted a 3.19 ERA with 56 strikeouts and 29 walks in 62 innings a year ago. He had a 3.58 ERA across 32-2/3 frames the season prior.