Alex Anthopoulos on Chris Sale, Reynaldo López stepping up for the Braves

On April 13, the Braves announced that right-handed starting pitcher Spencer Strider would miss the rest of the season due to an elbow injury.

Losing not only the ace of your staff but one of the best pitchers in the game would be a season-ruining moment for most teams.

And yet the Braves, winners of six consecutive National League East titles, have kept right on rolling. They have won 11 of 14 games since that announcement was made and are once again atop the division, 1 1/2 games clear of the Phillies entering Monday.

The starting rotation ranks among the top 10 in ERA (3.72) and opponents’ batting average (.231) thanks in large part to two offseason acquisitions who have stepped up in Strider’s absence: Reynaldo López and Chris Sale.

López was signed to a three-year deal in November with the intent of turning him back into a starting pitcher. The 30-year-old right-hander exceeded 180 innings with the White Sox in 2018 and ‘19 but had spent much of the past three seasons pitching in relief for the White Sox, Angels and Guardians. After winning a rotation spot in Spring Training, López has thrived in his return to starting, allowing only two earned runs in 25 innings. He has gone at least six innings in each of his four starts.

“He’s definitely exceeded expectations,” president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos said of López on MLB Network Radio. “If we thought he was going to do this, there wouldn’t have been a competition in spring. … We knew his floor was a really good reliever, but the fact that he had back-to-back years of 32 and 33 starts, 184 [and] 188 innings, we knew that the durability piece was there.”

A little more than a month after landing López, the Braves acquired Sale from the Red Sox for shortstop Vaughn Grissom, who was Atlanta’s No. 1 prospect when he debuted in the summer of 2022.

The deal came with considerable risk for the Braves as the 35-year-old Sale had thrown only 151 innings combined over the previous four seasons due to myriad injuries. But Anthopoulos believed that the seven-time All-Star would benefit from something he hadn’t had in a long time: a healthy offseason.

So far, that belief has paid off. Sale has followed up a fabulous spring by registering a 3.69 ERA and a 0.92 WHIP through five starts. He’s finished seven innings in each of his past three turns. He dealt seven innings of one-run ball with only two hits allowed and six strikeouts in a victory over the Guardians on Friday.

“He’s been awesome,” Anthopoulos said. “His stuff has been everything that we expected, command. The makeup piece we were very excited about because of all the young arms we have in the organization, and that’s been as advertised … in terms of leading by example and the way he goes about it and competitiveness.”

The Braves, at 19-7, are off to their best 26-game start to a season since 2000, when they won 20 of their first 26 games. López and Sale have played huge roles in their success thus far.

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