Rotation Woes

With Beachy going down on Saturday with a sore left elbow, the Braves' starting rotation, considered one of the deepest before the year started, is suddenly finding itself reeling. The organization is playing musical chairs with their pitchers - sending Medlen down to turn into a starter, jumping back and forth with what they were planning to do with him following his struggles and good starts by both Delgado and Minor, then finally bringing him back as a reliever.

The rotation as it currently stands is:
Hudson
Hanson
Delgado
Minor
Jurrjens

Besides Hudson and Hanson, everyone else is playing for his job.

Now that Beachy has been sidelined for a good while (and will probably need Tommy John), the Braves called up Jair Jurrjens to tryout in a spot start. Should his start go poorly (which I am predicting will happen given his pretty terrible results and peripherals in AAA), the  job could go either to Medlen or Teheran. Medlen was less than stellar in his 3 starts in AAA, pitching only 13.1 innings and posting a 4.73 ERA and a 4.93 FIP. Teheran hasn't been better. Coming off a phenomenal 2011 season, he seems to have regressed tremendously, with numbers far down across the board.

Delgado and Minor have also been disappointing this year, Although it has been really great to see both of them step up when they were pushed. But given that both seem to lose their great stuff from time to time and have problems consistently finding strikezone, I don't know that I feel comfortable with them manning the 3 and 4 spots for the entire rest of the year. But hey, maybe one or both will figure out how to harness their talents to produce more consistent results. If they both happen to find their groove, it would take a lot of pressure off the Braves Front Office, the management, and the offense. And they are certainly capable of it - when Delgado and Minor are on, it is fun to watch.