It appears that Dustin Peterson’s first tenure in the big leagues was a short one.
Following the Braves’ series split with the Mets, the Braves seemingly felt like they needed to call in some reinforcements in advance of their showdown with the Washington Nationals. The offense of late has been a bit uneven, but a strong showing against the Nationals would go a long way towards making the Braves’ hot start to the season even more “real”.
However, the way they are choosing to go about it is a a little puzzling.
The #Braves today selected the contract of OF Peter Bourjos from Triple-A Gwinnett and optioned OF Dustin Peterson to @GoStripers. In order to make room on the 40-man roster, the club released RHP Aaron Blair.
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) May 31, 2018
Dustin Peterson only had two at-bats in the majors, so it wouldn’t be fair to judge him based on his performance in the big leagues. However, the Braves also seemed to have no interest in giving him more playing time than he was getting, so he will return to Gwinnett to play every day and get more at-bats. The Braves are calling Peter Bourjos presumably to bolster the bench. After a less than auspicious first stint with the big league club in 2018, Bourjos has slashed .277/.352/.511 for Triple-A Gwinnett and is batting .158 over his last 10 games. Why the Braves feel like Bourjos is a better option than Peterson (beyond just wanting to let Dustin play every day) is definitely unclear.
To make room to put Bourjos on the 40 man roster again, the Braves have released pitcher Aaron Blair who was out for the season after undergoing shoulder surgery. Blair put up some very reasonable numbers in the minors with a career 3.79 ERA in 565 innings in the minors. However, he was never able to gain any traction in the major leagues for the Braves with a career 7.89 ERA in 16 starts across two seasons.