{"id":21656,"date":"2024-12-29T00:45:18","date_gmt":"2024-12-29T00:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=21656"},"modified":"2024-12-29T00:45:18","modified_gmt":"2024-12-29T00:45:18","slug":"breaking-news-this-breakout-braves-pitcher-may-hold-the-fate-of-atlantas-2025-season-in-his-arm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=21656","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING NEWS: This breakout Braves pitcher may hold the fate of Atlanta&#8217;s 2025 season in his arm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/c_crop,x_0,y_551,w_5369,h_3020\/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto\/images\/GettyImages\/mmsport\/17\/01jfxyfr8vqvtbq04m1e.jpg\" alt=\"Kansas City Royals v Atlanta Braves\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-0\">The final calendar days or the 2024 year are approaching and the Atlanta Braves are a much different roster than what they ended the previous season with. The most notable difference comes in the rotation, where Atlanta has lost a ton of innings with Max Fried and Charlie Morton&#8217;s (presumed) departure.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\">While there is still a ton of time for Atlanta to add, if the club chooses to roll with a Sale, Schwellenbach, Lopez, and eventually Strider rotation as the top four arms in 2025 they will be taking a big gamble. Each pitcher comes with their own risk, but one in particular could determine the fate of the Braves entire season.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"inline-text-2\">Reynaldo Lopez repeating his 2024 success will be a deciding factor for the Braves NL East hopes<\/h2>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\">In his debut season with Atlanta, Reynaldo Lopez turned in the best season of his nine-year career. Lopez started 25 games and pitched to the tune of a <strong>1.99 ERA<\/strong> and<strong> 2.92 FIP<\/strong>. Although his expected numbers were a bit higher, Lopez pitched with such aggression in the zone that hitters never looked comfortable in the box when he was on the mound.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Reynaldo Lopez&#39;s 2Ks in the 2nd.<\/p>\n<p>4Ks thru 2. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/s4pD6YLt5M\">pic.twitter.com\/s4pD6YLt5M<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PitchingNinja\/status\/1840175797920751890?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 28, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\">This offseason the Braves issued a vote of confidence Lopez could repeat his 2024 good work by restructuring his contract. Lopez took less money in 2025 so that the Braves could move that to 2026. Atlanta also went ahead and guaranteed the 2027 club option worth $8 million to bring the total contract to 3 years\/$30 million.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\">That deal is a bargain for the pitcher Lopez was in 2024, but should he regress (and the numbers suggest he will), it&#8217;s still a quality deal as long as Lopez is past the injury scares that slowed him down post All-Star break. Lopez came into last Spring as the fifth starter so there wasn&#8217;t a lot of pressure to post solid numbers and give the Braves a ton of innings.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\">However, should Lopez enter next season as the third or fourth starter Atlanta will need more than the 135 innings he gave them last season. It&#8217;s imperative that Lopez inches closer to the 165 innings veteran Charlie Morton provided last season. If Reynaldo accomplishes that workload and maintains his impressive strikeout numbers the Braves chances of recapturing the NL East crown increase significantly.<\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is veteran pitcher Reynaldo Lopez the biggest x-factor for the Atlanta Braves in 2025? Honestly, he very well could be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":21657,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>BREAKING NEWS: This breakout Braves pitcher may hold the fate of Atlanta&#039;s 2025 season in his arm - NEWS USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=21656\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"BREAKING NEWS: This breakout Braves pitcher may hold the fate of Atlanta&#039;s 2025 season in his arm - NEWS USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Is veteran pitcher Reynaldo Lopez the biggest x-factor for the Atlanta Braves in 2025? 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