Braves at instructs led by Class A Rome’s rotation, Maitan

The Braves’ instructional league camp officially began last Monday, but there was a group of young players who were deservedly given a few extra days to report to Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

Members of the Rome Braves saw their season extend until Sept. 16, but the extra work did not go unrewarded. The club took home the Class A South Atlantic League title, defeating the Lakewood BlueClaws in four games. So the organization allowed them to enjoy the feat and catch their collective breath. Those on the R-Braves had their first workout on Friday, getting the chance to revel in their championship in camp for the first time.

“This is such a tight-knit group of players,” Braves assistant director of player development Jonathan Schuerholz said. “There’s a reason why you saw the improvement from the first half to the second half, behind the skills. They have great makeup. They probably do feel like kings of the castle. And they should be proud of themselves. But they also understand they’re not a finished product and they have work to do.”

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Rome went 27-42 in the first half and then turned it around to win its divisional second-half crown with a 43-27 record. Many hitters upped their game, with third baseman Austin Riley perhaps the most notable (.929 OPS in the second half vs. .671 in the first). Outfielder Ronald Acuna returned in late August and provided a huge boost as well.

But no one questions that it was the pitching that really made this engine run. The staff had a 1.16 ERA in the postseason, an exclamation point to a tremendous second half nearly across the board. Kolby Allard and Mike Soroka are at instructs, but Max Fried is not, with the Braves feeling Fried had earned a full offseason after spending nearly two straight years at the Walt Disney World complex coming back from Tommy John surgery.

Each member of this trio was dominant whenever on the mound during Rome’s playoff run. And while Schuerholz noted it’s far too soon to anoint anyone, how they fed off of each other reminded him of a Braves big three of yesteryear.

“I probably shouldn’t compare it to this, but if you take what we had in Atlanta with Maddux, Smoltz and Glavine, how they pushed and challenged each other in a good way, how they didn’t want …

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