{"id":52028,"date":"2025-08-07T12:39:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T12:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/52028\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T12:39:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T12:39:15","slug":"braves-notes-jimenez-holmes-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/52028\/","title":{"rendered":"Braves Notes: Jimenez, Holmes, Sale"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Jim\u00e9nez<\/a> has been out all season after undergoing left knee surgery last November. The Braves reliever is now nine months removed from a procedure that came with an 8-12 month timeline. Jim\u00e9nez had been throwing but was shut back down after experiencing soreness in his knee, manager Brian Snitker said yesterday (relayed by Barrett Sallee of 680 The Fan<\/a>).<\/p>\n

It now seems there\u2019s a good chance Jim\u00e9nez won\u2019t pitch at all this season. This is a lost year for Atlanta. There\u2019s little incentive to push Jim\u00e9nez through discomfort. The 30-year-old righty would surely love to get back on the mound so he can go into the offseason with some normalcy, but the Braves aren\u2019t going to take any chances.<\/p>\n

Jim\u00e9nez had the best year of his career in 2024. He threw a personal-high 68 2\/3 innings with a 2.62 ERA. He recorded a career-best 27 holds while striking out nearly 30% of batters faced. It was an excellent start to his three-year, $26MM free agent deal. The injury unfortunately robbed him of most (potentially all) of year two. He\u2019s signed for $9MM next season.<\/p>\n

Atlanta is likely to see\u00a0Raisel Iglesias<\/a> depart in free agency. They\u2019ll exercise their $7MM club option to retain\u00a0Pierce Johnson<\/a>, barring a late-season injury.\u00a0Aaron Bummer<\/a> and\u00a0Dylan Lee<\/a> will also be back. The rest of the relief group is in question.\u00a0Daysbel Hern\u00e1ndez<\/a> has a 2.25 ERA but has walked almost 20% of opponents. Atlanta acquired Tyler Kinley<\/a> from Colorado last week. That suggests they\u2019ll at least consider bringing him back on a $5MM team option, but he hasn\u2019t managed particularly good numbers since 2022. The Braves will likely need two or three external bullpen pickups on top of a healthy return from Jim\u00e9nez.<\/p>\n

While the Braves haven\u2019t officially ruled Jim\u00e9nez out for the season, starter\u00a0Grant Holmes<\/a> is definitely done for the year. Atlanta almost immediately placed him on the 60-day injured list when he went down with an elbow injury before the trade deadline. The Braves later diagnosed the issue as a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament. That has the potential to be a precursor to surgery, but Holmes told reporters (including David O\u2019Brien of The Athletic<\/a>) that he\u2019ll attempt to rehab without going under the knife.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I can avoid the knife as long as possible, that\u2019s the route I want to take,\u201d the 29-year-old righty said. \u201cI haven\u2019t had any surgeries yet, thankfully, and I\u2019m trying to keep it that way.\u201d Holmes added that he\u2019ll be on a no-throw program for at least six weeks and expressed his hope that he could resume throwing simulated games in November. He pointed out that undergoing Tommy John or internal brace surgery now would almost certainly cost him the entire 2026 season regardless. Holmes therefore felt he didn\u2019t have much to lose in trying a non-surgical approach and evaluating how his elbow feels in a few months. If it doesn\u2019t progress as hoped, he could undergo surgery early in the offseason and still set a goal of coming back at the start of the \u201927 campaign.<\/p>\n

Before the injury, Holmes was a bright spot in Atlanta\u2019s nightmare season. He turned in a 3.99 ERA while striking out a quarter of opponents across 22 appearances. Holmes had impressed last season as a rookie but worked more often in long relief. He showed this season that he can be a capable mid-rotation starter as long as he\u2019s healthy. Holmes is one of five Atlanta starters dealing with a long-term injury. They already lost\u00a0AJ Smith-Shawver<\/a> to Tommy John surgery, and it\u2019d be a surprise if Spencer Schwellenbach<\/a> returns from a broken elbow this year.\u00a0Reynaldo L\u00f3pez<\/a> has been out almost all year after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder surgery.<\/p>\n

Chris Sale<\/a>, out since mid-June with a ribcage fracture, is the only one of that quintet who seems very likely to make it back this season. Sale is set to throw a live batting practice session on Thursday (via the MLB.com injury tracker<\/a>). He\u2019s not far off a minor league rehab assignment and could return from the 60-day IL before the end of the month. That\u2019d allow the reigning NL Cy Young winner to make five or six starts to close the season. It won\u2019t mean anything in the standings, but it\u2019d give the Braves some confidence entering an offseason in which they\u2019ll face questions about everyone in the rotation aside from Spencer Strider<\/a>. Atlanta will retain Sale on an $18MM club option for what\u2019ll be his age-37 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joe Jim\u00e9nez has been out all season after undergoing left knee surgery last November. The Braves reliever is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,3975,21460,3991,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-52028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-chris-sale","11":"tag-grant-holmes","12":"tag-joe-jimenez","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}