Martín

Pérez

Pérez continues to string together strong outings for the Braves, picking up his second-straight win while limiting baserunners all night. All three runs and all five baserunners Pérez allowed in this one came in the third inning, as the Pirates appeared to be getting after him early on. That said, he settled in to pitch back-to-back scoreless frames while the Braves battled their way back from a 3-1 deficit to position Pérez for the victory. He’ll look to pick up a third-straight win in his next outing, which is scheduled for Thursday at the White Sox.

Pérez has made eight starts this season, pitching between five and six innings in all of them. He’s allowed no runs twice, one run twice, two runs twice and four runs twice. Throw in his two runs in 9 1/3 innings out of the pen, and he has a 2.79 ERA. He’ll pitch at home against the Pirates next week.

Pérez struck out two and walked two. His top-prospect days are well behind him at 35 years old, but he’s managed to carve out quite the sustainable career following some early struggles. The soft-tossing southpaw will be a difficult start in Cincinnati next time out.

15 seasons and 285 starts into his career, Pérez finally reaches double figures. He’d struck out nine four times previously. In spite of the strikeouts, it wasn’t a great game for Pérez, as six of the 11 balls in play against him were hit hard. Also, both batters he walked came around to score. Still, Pérez has a 2.85 ERA through 41 innings. He’ll face the Nationals on Sunday.

After a solid MLB debut, it’s been downhill for Ritchie, who now has a 4.91 ERA, 1.48 WHIP, and 21/16 K/BB ratio in 25 2/3 MLB innings. Many people had added him in hopes of a solid two-start week this week, but he will only get one start. It seems that it will be Martín Pérez, who will start on Sunday and get a sneaky good two-start week.

While the Braves have yet to officially announce their rotation for their weekend series against the Red Sox, the expectation is that Bryce Elder and Spencer Strider will start the first two games with Grant Holmes sliding back into the Braves’ rotation on Sunday. Pérez, 35, has posted a brilliant 2.31 ERA, 0.97 WHIP and a 26/11 K/BB ratio over 35 innings in his eight appearances (five starts, with the Braves this season.

Pérez has a 2.38 ERA in his five starts and two relief appearances this season. He could spend more time in the pen now that the Braves have Spencer Strider back, but we’ll see how that works out. Since the Braves have six starters and off days Thursday and Monday, we wouldn’t expect to see Pérez start during the Cubs series running from Tuesday through Thursday next week.

Pérez gave up two hits, walked four and struck out five. The 35-year-old left-hander improved to 2-1 on the year with the win. Pérez has been excellent with a 2.22 ERA this season, but is likely to be booted from the rotation when Spencer Strider return this weekend.

Atlanta hasn’t finalized their pitching plan for the remainder of the week, but Strider will be part of it, most likely on Sunday in place of journeyman Martín Pérez, after missing the opening five weeks of the season recovering from an oblique strain. The 27-year-old former fantasy ace shouldn’t have any workload restrictions after throwing 82 pitches during his final rehab start for Triple-A Gwinnett over the weekend. It’s a challenging spot having to contend with Coors Field’s high-octane offensive environment right out of the gate, but Strider is probably going to be worth the risk for managers in deeper fantasy leagues that have been stashing him this long.

Strider was still sitting just 95 mph with his four-seam fastball, but he did maintain that velocity through five innings, so that’s a positive. His slider had a 61 percent strike rate and 54 percent whiff rate, and he threw 61 percent of his 82 pitches for strikes overall. It’s hard to see the Braves keeping him in the minors much longer. They have shifted around their rotation with Reynaldo Lopez heading to the bullpen, and Martin Perez starting on Tuesday. That would make it very easy for Strider to pitch this weekend in Perez’s spot. However, that game is in Coors, and Strider still does not look like his pre-surgery self, so we would proceed with caution.