{"id":18893,"date":"2019-04-17T18:34:41","date_gmt":"2019-04-17T22:34:41","guid":{"rendered":"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/?p=18893"},"modified":"2019-04-17T18:34:41","modified_gmt":"2019-04-17T22:34:41","slug":"atlanta-braves-arodys-vizcaino-injury-causes-more-bullpen-woes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2019\/04\/17\/atlanta-braves-arodys-vizcaino-injury-causes-more-bullpen-woes\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlanta Braves: Arodys Vizca\u00edno Injury Causes More Bullpen Woes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Atlanta Braves have announced that closer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/v\/vizcaar01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Arodys Vizca\u00edno<\/a> has opted for season-ending right shoulder surgery. Vizca\u00edno elected to have the surgery to clean up his labrum and to remove scar tissue from his right shoulder joint.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p>\u2014 Atlanta Braves (@Braves) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Braves\/status\/1118605130037956608?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 17, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Arodys Vizca\u00edno Opts for Season-Ending Surgery<\/h2>\n<h3>A Tough Blow for the Pen<\/h3>\n<p>The injury bug keeps biting the Braves bullpen as Vizca\u00edno will join\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/v\/ventejo01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jonny Venters<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/o\/odayda01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Darren O&#8217;Day<\/a> on the IL. With Vizca\u00edno out, a relieving core that has already had their fair amount of struggles will now be without one of their top late-inning arms.<\/p>\n<p>Players like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/minteaj01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">A.J. Minter<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/p\/parsowe01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wes Parsons<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/carlesh01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shane Carle<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jackslu01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Luke Jackson<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/biddlje01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jesse Biddle<\/a> will have to step up in order to right the ship. The Braves relievers currently hold a 5.43 ERA and rank fifth in walks allowed. This puts them at 27th in walk rate &#8212; something that will have to change if Atlanta is looking to repeat as NL East champs.<\/p>\n<h3>Craig Kimbrel Time?<\/h3>\n<p>The Braves are in imminent need of a closer and with Minter struggling, it may finally be time to <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/2019\/04\/02\/teams-benefit-craig-kimbrel\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">bring back<\/a> former Braves All-Star <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/k\/kimbrcr01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Craig Kimbrel<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0Since the departure of Kimbrel in 2015, the Braves have had serious issues at the closer role, which has caused Braves Country to plead to the front office in hope of bringing their former closer back home. There was even a &#8220;WE-WANT-KIMBREL&#8221; chant after the relief core allowed seven runs in three innings to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Monday, but to no avail, as Kimbrel remains unsigned.<\/p>\n<p>Kimbrel obviously wouldn&#8217;t fix all the problems in the Braves bullpen, but adding a shutdown closer would add depth and be a much-needed upgrade.\u00a0The Braves could decide to go the cheaper route and stick with Minter, but if he keeps struggling, expect the &#8220;Kimbrel to Atlanta&#8221; rumors to intensify.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<br \/>\n<a id=\"RLT5gZ-gTgVexaEoHPm-2A\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1140691125\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'RLT5gZ-gTgVexaEoHPm-2A',sig:'UsfhCZAbO0earkEB6IF5KSYGqezjNRtyesbWb19E5g4=',w:'594px',h:'395px',items:'1140691125',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Atlanta Braves have announced that closer Arodys Vizca\u00edno has opted for season-ending right shoulder surgery. Vizca\u00edno elected to have the surgery to clean up his labrum and to remove scar tissue from his right shoulder joint. \u2014 Atlanta Braves (@Braves) April 17, 2019 Arodys Vizca\u00edno Opts for Season-Ending Surgery A Tough Blow for the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2924,"featured_media":18916,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,2,35],"tags":[1904,48,323,2470,156,2469,1951,2456],"class_list":["post-18893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-braves","category-featured","category-news","tag-arodys-vizcaino","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-craig-kimbrel","tag-jesse-biddle","tag-los-angeles-angels","tag-luke-jackson","tag-shane-carle","tag-wes-parsons"],"modified_by":"Evan Thompson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2924"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}