Braves might need to give this hard-throwing relief prospect a chance

The Braves bullpen woes have been well-documented. They have absolutely nobody that should be trusted with a one-run lead, and that’s not a good thing when they’ve played the most one-run games of any team in baseball.

Raisel Iglesias’ production has fallen off a cliff. He owns an unsightly 6.75 ERA and left Brian Snitker no choice but to remove him from the closer’s role. In his place, the Braves turned to Pierce Johnson over the weekend, who gave up a walk-off two-run homer on Saturday in his first opportunity. Nobody, outside of Iglesias, has experience closing games, and that’s only part of the problem.

The Braves top set-up man so far this season, Daysbel Herndandez, was recently added to the IL with right forearm tightness, further adding to Atlanta’s issues. They need multiple arms to steady the ship, and the trade deadline is still a couple of months away, which could force them to take some gambles with their internal options.

Among them, Jhancarlos Lara is by far the most intriguing. He’s rocking a whopping 11.53 ERA this season, not typically the mark of somebody who deserves a promotion to the majors. However, the Braves recently decided to make him a full-time reliever and promote him to Gwinnett. The results haven’t been much better — 8.53 ERA over 6.1 innings — but there have been flashes of what makes him a potential weapon out of the bullpen.

Jhancarlos Lara has the best arm in the entire organization, wielding a heater than can touch 102 MPH on the radar gun with a plus-slider.