The Braves made a flurry of moves to fortify their ailing pitching staff. Most of them were desperate.
Carlos Carrasco is in the twilight of his playing career. Erick Fedde was awful for the Cardinals through July. Bryce Elder hasn’t been consistent since the first half the 2023 season, and Hurston Waldrep is still a prospect.
Then there’s left-hander Joey Wentz, the most intriguing of the pitchers added by the Braves. They couldn’t realistically expect much from a pitcher who’s on his third MLB team this year. Wentz has pitched well enough for the Braves that it’s not wild to think he can be part of the team’s plans in 2026.
“It’s been way more than probably we could ever imagine,” manager Brian Snitker said after Wentz helped the Braves beat the Marlins on Sunday at Truist Park.
Wentz bounced back from his worst start for the Braves with an effective outing. He held the Marlins to one run over 5⅓ innings with four hits, two strikeouts and three walks. The Braves won 7-1 for their third consecutive victory and fourth of the five-game series against Miami.
Wentz now has a 2.83 ERA in six games (five starts) for the Braves with 26 strikeouts, 10 walks and one home run allowed over 28⅔ innings. That’s after the Pirates and Twins both released Wentz during this season.
“Our (scouts) said when he was with Minnesota, he didn’t do so great, but they kind of recognized some stuff with his pitch mix and things like that and had some recommendations for him,” Snitker said. “He’s been really solid for us.”
One good month with the Braves doesn’t outweigh Wentz’s three-plus seasons of poor results before. It does make his performance a bright start for a team that needs pitching depth for the rest of this season and 2026.
“Trying to keep it simple and not make it bigger than what it is,” Wentz, 27, said of his approach.
It’s working for him. Wentz’s results against the Marlins might have turned out differently if some hard-hit balls didn’t fizzle at the warning track. Still, Wentz did his job well enough to give his team a chance to win. He’s done that in four of his six outings for the Braves despite some trying circumstances.
The day after the Braves claimed him, Wentz pitched three scoreless innings in relief during a 7-6 victory at St. Louis. Wentz made his first start since 2023 on July 19 and didn’t allow a run over four innings against the Yankees. Wentz was still getting “stretched out” as a starter when the Rangers scored three earned runs against him over 4⅓ innings on July 25.
The Brewers touched Wentz for five runs during their 7-2 victory Monday. He was hurt by one bad inning that included a wild pitch and two infield singles.
It looked as if Wentz might have another rough day when the Marlins drove two of his pitches to the warning track during the first two innings and scored when Liam Hicks followed Derek Hills’ double with a single. Wentz adjusted to Miami’s aggressive at-bats and never let things get out of hand.
“After the first couple innings, I was like, ‘I’ve got to start not just slamming things in there for strikes,’” Wentz said. “They were hitting some balls hard. Fortunately for me, some of them were right to guys and guys made good plays.”
The bad injury luck for Braves pitchers has created another chance for Wentz to prove he belongs in the majors.
Baseball America ranked Wentz among the top 50 prospects in baseball before the 2018 season. At the time Wentz was still with the Braves, who selected him in the first round of the 2016 draft. The Braves traded him to the Tigers before the 2019 trade deadline as part of the deal for closer Shane Greene.
The Tigers released Wentz in September 2024. Wentz had a 1.50 ERA in eight appearances that month for the Pirates, but they gave up on Wentz after he allowed runs in eight of 19 relief appearances this year (4.15 ERA). The Twins claimed Wentz off waivers, then moved on after he surrendered 14 runs and six extra-base hits over eight innings.
The Braves claimed Wentz with the plan to try him in the bullpen. Yet another injury to a starter prompted the Braves to put Wentz in the rotation. The health of their starting pitchers is at the top of the what-if list for this season.
Grant Holmes joined four other Braves starters on the 60-day injured list July 27. Since then, the team has used Waldrep, Spencer Strider and a collection of castoffs for starts. Pitching depth could be a concern in 2026, too, with four rotation candidates now dealing with long-term injuries.
Maybe Wentz can help the Braves with that problem. His surprisingly good performances have been bright spots amid all the gloomy injury news Braves starters.
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