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Last night, we reported that Owen Murphy would be the next big prospect call-up for the Atlanta Braves. This was after the news came out that Martín Pérez would likely be heading to the IL due to the injury that he suffered after getting hit with a comebacker during Sunday’s loss to the Mets. We also speculated that Carlos Carrasco would be getting designated for assignment because, well, it’s 2026 Carlos Carrasco and it’s the 2026 Atlanta Braves.
Today, all of that news was confirmed as the Braves made their roster moves official. Owen Murphy is, in fact, being called up and Carlos Carrasco being DFA’d is the corresponding move. Martín Pérez is heading to the IL and JR Ritchie has been recalled to the major league roster as a result.
I’d say that it’s pretty good news that Pérez got away from that incident with just a contusion. It’s still tough to lose him for at least 15 days but we’ll take that over a fracture or any other type of structural damage for Pérez. It makes sense that he’s going to be sitting out for a bit since you wouldn’t want a guy pitching with that ype of injury and hopefully he does heal pretty quickly from this.
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With that being said, it’s pretty exciting to see Owen Murphy getting the call-up and hopefully we’ll see him make a successful debut once he’s called upon. There’s still some questions as to whether or not JR Ritchie is ready but it’s better for him to be getting major league reps so that he can continue to get used to this level of competition so that he can hopefully become a positive contributor to this pitching staff.
As far as Carlos Carrasco goes, I’m going to add my personal opinion here and say that this should be the last stop on the DFA cycle for Carrasco. I understand that they value his experience and that the team has a pretty decent relationship with him at the moment.
With that being said, Carrasco’s value as a baseball player comes from his ability to throw multiple innings and it has rarely gone well for him if he goes past an inning of work. Atlanta has plenty of internal options who can serve the same role that Carrasco does and do it better than he can at this point, so hopefully this JR Ritchie can stick around so that the temptation to bring Carrasco back doesn’t creep up.
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That’s just speculation on my part and we very well could see Carrasco back in action in the near future. For now, the Braves are turning towards their farm system for help and hopefully both Murphy and Ritchie can find a way to stick around for the time being.
