After 1,029 days, two achilles surgeries, and multiple rehab starts Michael Soroka started for the Atlanta Braves last night, and all things considered looked pretty good. The Morning Shift reacted to Soroka’s return this morning.
Soroka pitched a solid six innings, gave up five hits, four runs, walked two batters, and struck out three. Michael was also able to pitch out of a bases loaded jam in the bottom of the third inning by getting Seth Brown to ground into an inning ending double play.
The only inning Soroka couldn’t get out of trouble was the bottom of the fifth where he gave up a three run home run to Ryan Noda, and even after the rough fifth inning Michael had, he came out in the sixth and bounced back with a fairly clean inning.
Mike Johnson shares the same sentiment as most Braves, and is just happy Soroka got through the start with no injury concerns. “The biggest thing is that he got out healthy, no hiccups, had good velocity on the fastball...”Johnson said.
Beau Morgan was most impressed by Michael’s ability to bounce back in the sixth inning after a rough fifth inning, and Soroka’s economical pitching. “The thing that kind of impressed me is he had the bad inning in the fifth and he goes back out in the sixth and is fine, he basically had one bad inning last night. He got through six innings with only 83 pitches which is very economical.” Morgan said.
However, Beau believes it will still take time for Soroka to get to a point where everything is back to normal. “I don’t think he’s out of the woods yet. I don’t think he’s going to start in five days and throw 95 pitching in eight innings and give up one earned run. I think there’s going to be some hiccups, but I just thought it was really really positive what you saw from him.” Morgan said.
It will most likely take more time before Michael looks like the pitcher he was in 2019 who was the Braves ace and the Braves youngest opening day starter in franchise history in 2020. However, last night was a great starting point for Michael Soroka and he has returned when the Braves need him most.