Bullpen has Braves armed for playoffs

Jonny Venters is the hardest-working reliever in baseball.

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He has thrown the most innings. He has made the most appearances. He also leads the majors in the truest measure of bullpen chivalry: back-to-backs.

The Braves lefty has made 25 appearances this season after pitching the day before, according to Baseball-Reference.com. That is three more than anyone else in the major leagues.

“I didn’t know that I had done that,” Venters said during a telephone interview Tuesday. “It’s just one of those things where you’ve got to go to the field every day, ready to pitch. There are days when you don’t feel good, but you’ve got to be prepared to pitch, anyway.

“I like the workload. I feel like I can maintain my mechanics better the more that I pitch.”

To which every baseball old-timer (and current big-league manager) would say: Bless you.

Yes, first-year Atlanta manager Fredi Gonzalez has it pretty good. He inherited a playoff team from the legendary Bobby Cox. The organization is teeming with quality arms, with rookie starter Randall Delgado (six no-hit innings on Tuesday) the latest to emerge.

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The team’s media relations department is faced with the enviable task of choosing whether to promote first baseman Freddie Freeman or closer Craig Kimbrel as the team’s top National League Rookie of the Year candidate. Brian McCann, arguably the best all-around catcher in baseball, just came off the disabled list. As you may have heard, Dan Uggla’s bat returned from its early-season exile.

The bullpen, though, has been Gonzalez’s greatest bounty of all. The Braves don’t merely have “good arms.” They have bazookas wrapped in elastic and epidermis.

Of the six relievers who have logged the most back-to-backs this season, three pitch for the Braves: Venters, Eric O’Flaherty and Kimbrel. All three appeared in Atlanta’s 2-1, 11-inning win over San Francisco on Tuesday. All three have ERAs below 2.00. All three were in every Atlanta box score you checked this year. (OK, maybe not, but you get the point.)

If he continues at this rate, Venters will finish the season with 33 back-to-backs. That would be a testament to the 26-year-old’s physical and mental fortitude, but not necessarily an achievement worth putting on the Turner Field scoreboard. The only two relievers who surpassed 30 back-to-backs last year, Pedro Feliciano (Mets) and Peter Moylan (Braves), have combined to pitch just 4 1/3 major-league innings this season because of injuries.

The line between heavy use and overuse is fine indeed, but it’s hard to criticize Gonzalez too much. His team plays a lot of close games. It is his job to win them. Tuesday’s victory was the Braves’ 22nd extra-inning game this year. That’s the most in the majors.

So, Venters has learned to be ready.

“Everybody has those days when your arm is a little sore — I’ve had a couple,” he said. “But it was more mechanical things that caused it, rather than throwing so much.

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“Right after the All-Star break, Fredi told me he wanted to give me a few extra days off here and there. He wanted me to be strong down the stretch. I actually haven’t pitched that much lately, so everything feels good. Fredi and (pitching coach) Roger (McDowell) are really good at knowing when I’ve been pitching a lot. Roger will come up to me and say that I’ve got the day off.”

The biggest surprise about Venters’ routine: He doesn’t use ice packs on his arm. At all.

“I don’t,” he said. “I think I’m the only one in the bullpen who doesn’t. Everybody ices but me. If I throw 25 pitches and maybe I’m a little tired or sore, ice doesn’t make my arm feel better. It would actually make my arm feel tighter. So, I’ll do work in the weight room instead.”

There are reasons to believe that Venters’ workload could ease in the coming weeks. The additions of McCann (from the DL) and Michael Bourn (via trade) should make the Braves’ lineup more potent, thus reducing the high-stress bullpen innings. And while general manager Frank Wren didn’t acquire a bullpen arm before last month’s non-waiver trade deadline, recently promoted 20-year-old Arodys Vizcaino has the makings of a late-inning stopper.

“I think as the season has gone on we have been able to space out the use of our guys, and they are throwing as well as ever,” Wren said.

They are throwing well. They are throwing hard. They are throwing (it only seems) every day. The youth of the Braves’ relievers is such that R&R down the stretch would be wise. Gonzalez is going to need them in October.

Late October.