Highly touted right handed pitching prospect Didier Fuentes appears set to make his Major League debut for Atlanta on Friday vs. the Marlins.
The club announced Didier’s promotion via social media on Friday morning, and designated RHP José Ruiz for assignment in a corresponding move.
Fuentes, who only turned 20 three days ago, is one of Atlanta’s fastest rising prospects after being signed as an amateur out of Colombia back in 2022. The hard throwing righty began the season at High-A Rome, before making 5 starts at Double-A Columbus. Fuentes then made 1 appearance with Triple-A Gwinnett prior to his call up.
MLB.com has Fuentes listed as the Braves’ number 10 prospect overall, with a fastball that sits in the 94-97mph range, and features a plus slider and a splitter. Since joining the Braves organization 3 years ago, he’s racked up 223 strikeouts through 185 innings pitched.
Overall, the 6′, 170lbs hurler has registered a 4.81 ERA, with 48 strikeouts vs. 12 walks in 39.1 IP on the season across all levels. It’s currently unclear whether Fuentes will be here to stay at the MLB level, or whether this is simply a spot start to give the Braves rotation an extra day of rest.
Atlanta has now won 6 of its last 7 games, and just finished sweeping the New York Mets in a divisional showdown this week. Overall, the team has been a Jekyll and Hyde team, boasting a solid 22-15 home record, but a polar opposite 12-24 record on the road.
The team currently sits at 34-39 on the year, 10 games back of the Mets and Phillies who are tied atop the NL East. The Braves have their work cut out for them, as they currently have at least 5 teams that they’ll need to leap frog in the standings if they hope to enter into the NL Wildcard conversation as well.
Nevertheless, Atlanta GM Alex Anthopoulos squashed any rumours that the team would be sellers ahead of the July 31st MLB trade deadline earlier this week, saying that players such as Chris Sale and Marcell Ozuna weren’t on the trading block.
Atlanta is in the midst of a pivotal divisional stretch of their schedule, having wrapped up 3 games vs. the Mets, before heading to Miami for a 3 game set, then to New York for a rematch vs. the Metropolitans. They then wrap up their NL East run with a 3 game series at home against the Phillies beginning on June 27th.
Photo: Eric Enfermero. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.