Braves notes: Allan Winans faces Mets again; Acua family dynamic adds to rivalry

ATLANTA Pitcher Allan Winans looks and acts as unassuming as a math teacher. Which is precisely what he was on Dec. 8, 2021, the day of the MLB Rule 5 draft. He was a 26-year-old New York Mets minor leaguer, but on that day Winans was working his offseason job substitute teaching Algebra

ATLANTA — Pitcher Allan Winans looks and acts as unassuming as a math teacher. Which is precisely what he was on Dec. 8, 2021, the day of the MLB Rule 5 draft. He was a 26-year-old New York Mets minor leaguer, but on that day Winans was working his offseason job — substitute teaching Algebra 1 at Bakersfield High School in his California hometown — when he had to step out of class for a moment to take a call.

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On the line was Braves farm director Ben Sestanovich, informing Winans the Braves had just taken him in the minor-league phase.

Monday night, for the second time in 10 days, Winans will have a chance to again remind the Mets what they gave up by declining to protect the right-hander in that 2021 Rule 5 draft, when all it would’ve required was placing him on their 38-man Triple-A roster. The Braves took him for just $24,500, the standard fee paid to a team that loses a player in the minor-league phase of the annual Rule 5 draft at baseball’s Winter Meetings.

As if scripted, Winans beat the Mets for his first major-league win just over a week ago. That was the opener of an Aug. 13 doubleheader at Citi Field in New York, just the second game of Winans’ MLB career, and he struck out nine while allowing only four hits and two walks (one intentional) in seven scoreless innings of a 21-3 rout.

Now he’ll face the Mets again in his first home start, after pitching his first two at Milwaukee and New York. Because he was the extra (27th) man brought up from Triple A for the doubleheader, Winans didn’t have to spend a minimum number of days in the minors before returning. The Braves will make a corresponding roster move Monday to accommodate his return.

#Braves' 7-game home winning streak ends in 4-3 series-finale loss to Giants. Kirby Yates' command abandoned him in 9th, when he gave up winning run on 2 walks & 2 HBPs. Braves are 5-1 on a homestand wraps with a 3-game series vs. Mets.
Fried: 5 2/3 IP, 9 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 6 K, 2 HR

— David O'Brien (@DOBrienATL) August 21, 2023

The Braves, baseball’s only 80-game winner (80-43), had a seven-game home winning streak snapped with a 4-3 loss to the San Francisco Giants in a series finale Sunday, the first loss in six games on a homestand that continues with three against the Mets before the Braves head west for a three-city trip to San Francisco, Los Angeles (Dodgers) and Colorado.

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Max Fried didn’t have his usual sharpness but grinded through 5 2/3 innings with nine hits and three runs allowed including two homers. Kirby Yates’ command abandoned him in the ninth inning when the Braves reliever let in the go-ahead run via two walks and two hit batters.

The Mets have won six of eight since dropping the first three of their recent four-game series against the Braves, but New York is still a distant fourth in the NL East standings, a staggering 23 games behind the division-leading Braves.

It’s already been something of a breakthrough season for Winans, who turned 28 this month and has shown he could be a viable candidate for more starts this season and a back-of-the-rotation candidate going forward. He’s 1-0 with a 1.59 ERA in two MLB starts and 8-3 with a 2.79 ERA in 20 games (15 starts) in Triple A.

Winans has a combined 115 strikeouts with 32 walks in 124 1/3 innings, including 14 strikeouts with three walks in 11 1/3 innings in the majors.

And while he does look unassuming, and has a slender physique that’s as unintimidating as his 89-90 mph fastballs, make no mistake: Winans is fearless and full of confidence, traits which are keys to his success, along with the excellent location he has with four pitches — changeup, sinker, slider, four-seam fastball, in order of their usage percentage in two MLB starts.

“I mean, he’s not wowed by anything,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “I love how he goes about it.”

Grounders that got through for some hits in his debut at Milwaukee did not against the Mets.

“People don’t get lucky by accident, you put yourself in good positions to get lucky,” Winans said after his win against the Mets. “Today, I feel like I did that.”

He said it was the first time he’d been to Citi Field, despite pitching for the Mets’ High-A Brooklyn Cyclones in 2021.

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“I played in Brooklyn a couple of years ago, but never really made my way to Manhattan or Queens or the Bronx or anything like that,” Winans said, smiling. “I kind of just stayed there in Brooklyn.”

Based on his first couple of MLB starts, there seems a pretty good chance he’ll be making more starts at Citi Field in the future. Not for the Mets, who drafted him in the 17th round out of Campbell University in 2018, but for the Mets’ powerhouse rivals from Atlanta.

Acuñas’ Braves-Mets thing

There could be a familial dynamic in the Braves-Mets rivalry in the not-too-distant future, after Luisangel Acuña, middle-infield prospect and younger brother of Braves superstar Ronald Acuña Jr., was traded from the Texas Rangers to the Mets in the Max Scherzer deadline deal.

The younger Acuña, 21, moved to the top of the Mets’ prospect rankings and climbed from 71st in the MLB Pipeline’s preseason top 100 to 40th in its midseason update. The Athletic’s Keith Law ranked him 58th in his midseason update.

Despite slumping since the trade, Luisangel Acuña had a .297 combined average with 36 extra-base hits (seven homers), 50 stolen bases in 56 attempts, and a .362 OBP and .781 OPS in 100 games before Sunday with Double-A affiliates for the Rangers and Mets.

Top-ranked @Mets prospect Luisangel Acuña notched at least three hits in an outing for the 10th time this year.

Acquired at the Trade Deadline in exchange for Max Scherzer, MLB's No. 40 prospect also swiped his 50th bag of 2023: pic.twitter.com/B3LMt50M1F

— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) August 19, 2023

“I think we’re gonna have a great rivalry, just because there’s so many parts of our game that are similar,” Ronald Acuña Jr. said of his brother, through a translator. “Watching him play, it feels like watching myself play, to be honest.”

Law wrote in his summary of the younger Acuña: “He’s a disciplined hitter who stays within the zone and is obviously quite fleet of foot, enough so that the Rangers have tried him a few games in center field this year, although he’s still primarily a shortstop and I think has a chance to stay there and maybe even get to above-average. The high-contact, high-steal, doubles-hitting approach should profile at either of those spots or at worst second base.”

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Ronald, who’ll be 26 in December, was 20 years and 128 days old when he made his MLB debut — 13 months younger than Luisangel today. He’s a few inches taller and has more power than his younger brother, who has 32 homers and a .422 slugging percentage in 352 minor-league games over four seasons.

Ronald had 21 homers in his last full minor-league season in 2017 but wasn’t as proficient stealing bases as his brother, totaling 44 steals in 64 attempts in that 2017 season. He was the No. 1 prospect in baseball entering 2018.

The Braves’ Acuña is hitting .331 with a .986 OPS and leads the majors with 56 steals in 66 attempts, to go with 28 home runs. He’s on pace for an historic season in terms of homers and stolen bases, and is widely regarded as one of, if not the most talented and exciting player in baseball.

He thinks his kid brother is bound for big things, too.

“I think they have plans for him here,” Acuña said last week in New York during the series against the Mets. “I’m hoping and expect him to keep putting in the work in the minor leagues. Things are going well and I hope to see him here soon rather than later.”

Extra rest for starters

By recalling Winans to start Monday, coupled with off days in the schedule last Thursday and this Thursday, the Braves will give two extra days’ rest to starters Bryce Elder and Charlie Morton, who are scheduled to pitch Tuesday and Wednesday against the Mets, and Spencer Strider, assuming he starts Friday’s series opener at San Francisco.

All three of those Braves starters rank among the NL’s top 15 in innings pitched, Strider with a team-high 146 1/3 innings that’s eighth-most in the league. That’s 15 more innings than the previous career-high 131 2/3 innings Strider pitched as a rookie in 2022 when he began the season in the bullpen and missed the last two weeks of the regular season with an oblique strain.

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Elder is 12th with 138 innings and also has six innings in Triple A. A year ago as a rookie, he had a career-high 159 combined innings in Triple A and MLB.

Morton, who is 39, ranks 15th in the NL with 134 2/3 innings, after pitching 172 innings last season and 185 2/3 innings in his first season with the Braves in 2021, with an additional 16 2/3 innings in the 2021 postseason for the World Series champions.

The Braves are paying attention to innings totals for their starting pitchers, including some who’ve bounced back and forth between the minors and big leagues. When Michael Soroka was pulled from his Saturday start for Triple-A Gwinnett after striking out nine in 4 2/3 innings and 73 pitches, it was because the Braves are keeping close tabs on his innings.

Soroka, who missed nearly three years recovering from a twice-torn Achilles and three resultant surgeries, has pitched 117 innings this season in Triple A and the majors, after totaling 38 2/3 innings over the previous three seasons combined. He pitched 184 combined innings in his All-Star rookie season in 2019, including 174 2/3 innings in 29 major-league starts.

(Photo of Allan Winans: Brad Penner / USA Today)

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