Walt Weiss provides clarity on injury to Robert Suarez

There are three critical pieces the Braves are hoping to get back at some point before the postseason — AJ Smith-Shawver, Spencer Schwellenbach, and Robert Suarez.

Smith-Shawver has already made his season debut for the major-league club after undergoing Tommy John surgery last May, and most recently turned in a really strong appearance for the Gwinnett Stripers. He should be back with the Braves within the next couple of weeks.

Schwellenbach’s situation is the most concerning of the bunch. His 2025 campaign ended with a fractured elbow, and he was supposed to be ready for the start of this season before a setback required surgery to remove loose bodies in that same elbow. He’s thrown a handful of bullpens to this point, but serious questions remain about whether the Braves push him to return at all this season, even if they could desperately use another starting pitcher.

Suarez’s injury falls somewhere in the middle. He was placed on the IL in mid-June with elbow inflammation. Further tests revealed no structural damage, and from the sound of it, this seemed like something he’d return from within a few weeks.

It’s now been close to two months, and Suarez still hasn’t thrown a bullpen. That’s not a great sign for someone this impactful. Over 31 appearances, he owns a 0.56 ERA in his first season with the Braves, pitching almost exclusively in high-leverage situations.

The expectation is that he should still return this year with plenty of time to ramp up before October, and Walt Weiss attempted to provide some clarity on the timeline.

“The philosophy there is we want him to be 100% pain-free before he starts to ramp up again,” Weiss said, via Gabe Burns of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “At this point of the season, we just can’t afford a setback. If he were to have a setback, his season is probably over. So we’re just really making sure he’s 100% when he steps on the mound again so he can sprint to the finish line.”

Burns also reported that the pain in Suarez’s elbow is minimal at this point, and all of this lines up with something Alex Anthopoulos said earlier this week about the situation.

“This is about October,” Anthopoulos told Suarez, making sure there were never any thoughts in his mind about trying to rush back.

It’s too early to panic. There are still a couple of months before the Braves take the field for playoff baseball, and it sounds like they’re taking every precautionary measure possible. But if we don’t see Suarez start throwing over the next month, the alarms will be sounding — because not only do they need him healthy, they need him pitching like the dominant relief arm he was before the injury.