Atlanta Braves: Should Mike Minor Remain in the Braves Rotation?

Mike Minor continued to put his rotation spot in jeopardy with another lackluster performance Saturday afternoon as the Atlanta Braves suffered their sixth consecutive defeat with an 8-4 loss to the Washington Nationals.

Minor remained susceptible to the home-run ball when Danny Espinosa deposited an 83 mph  change-up over the left field fence for a three-run homer. That was the fifth home run he has allowed in the past two starts, four of which have come off his change-up.

“Yeah, it’s supposed to be my best pitch,” Minor responded when asked during a post-game interview about his change-up. “I went back and looked at the video, and for a 0-0 changeup it wasn’t that bad of a pitch. But given, like I said, they have scouting reports on how many times I throw it. I know that guy’s an ambush guy, a first-pitch swinging. I guess he guessed right or just has that good of a swing that he ran into it.” – via The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Saying Minor has been hittable this season is putting it nicely. He is currently second in Major League Baseball, behind only New York Yankees starter Phil Hughes, allowing 2.02 HR/9.

He has posted a 9.94 ERA in his last six starts, allowing 12 home runs and 43 hits in 31.2 innings during that span.

Mark Bowman of MLB.com reported in his game recap that manager Fredi Gonzalez “seemed to indicate that the lefty would stay in the rotation for at least one more start.”

Who would be the most likely candidate to fill the vacant position if Atlanta wanted to take Minor out of the rotation?

Kris Medlen could potentially be stretched out for the role. In 25.2 relief innings this season, he has a 3.16 ERA with a 2.14 SO/BB rate.

He has also struggled recently, allowing a grand slam in Cincinnati after relieving Randall Delgado of a bases loaded situation and again Saturday, when he took the loss after allowing two runs on three hits in an inning of work.   

The Braves could also turn to Livan Hernandez in the short term while Jair Jurrjens continues to work through his own issues in the minor leagues.

After allowing only five runs in his first 22 innings at Triple-A Gwinnett, Jurrjens has given up 16 runs in his last nine innings.

One thing to keep an eye on is that Jurrjens is scheduled to take the mound for Gwinnett on Sunday, which would put him in line to start again on Friday. Minor’s next scheduled start is also Friday.

Top prospect Julio Teheran experienced command issues during his brief five games with Atlanta last season, and then backed those outings up with a rough spring training in which he allowed nine home runs in 16.1 innings.

Even though he has been solid at Triple-A thus far, is general manager Fran Wren ready to throw his 21-year-old prodigy back into the fire against major league hitters?

Other than those in-house options, the Braves could test the waters on free-agent pitcher Roy Oswalt.

Jayson Stark of ESPN.com recently reported that it’s still believed Atlanta would be on Oswalt’s short list of preferred teams.

In that same column, he also mentions that an official of an MLB team stated, "He wants a ton of money to pitch half a season.”

If true, that would make him difficult for Atlanta to fit under the ownership’s hard salary cap.

A couple more trade-deadline possibilities are Chicago Cubs veteran Ryan Dempster and Arizona Diamondbacks left-hander Joe Saunders.

Combine Minor’s strong second half of 2011 (4-1, 3.83 ERA) with his performance this spring and you can see why his start to the season has been such a disappointment.

Now that the league has made the proper adjustments in their approach on how to attack his pitch sequence, it’s his turn to counter those adjustments.

David O’Brien of the AJC pointed out in his column that Minor made some in-game adjustments on Saturday after giving up the Espinosa home run when he retired eight of the next nine batters by utilizing his curveball and cut fastball rather than the change-up.

The next question will be whether or not the Braves give him another turn in the rotation or look for answers elsewhere.