Newly acquired Braves reliever Mark Melancon was affected the past two seasons by a complicated forearm injury and its aftermath, all of which he said is now “thankfully in the rearview mirror.”
Melancon was one of baseball’s dominant closers before signing a four-year $62 million free-agent contract with the San Francisco Giants after the 2016 season. The pronator muscle injury sidelined him for chunks of the 2017 season, required surgery in September 2017 and continued to affect him throughout 2018.
“Even after surgery, I was told – and there’s no fault on any doctor’s part – it was going to take 2-1/2, 3 months (to recover) and all of ’18 I’d be fine,” Melancon said. “Well, all of ’18, I felt like I did prior to surgery. This year has been the first year where I’ve felt 100%.”
That the Braves assumed the approximately $18.6 million remaining on Melancon's contract -- $4.6 million owed for the balance of this season and $14 million for next season – tells you that the organization is confident in the way he is throwing the ball and in his health.
Melancon had a National League-leading 51 saves for Pittsburgh in 2015 and 47 saves in a 2016 season split between the Pirates and Washington Nationals. In a four-season stretch from 2013 through 2016, his ERA was below 2.00 in three seasons and barely above it in the other.
As was the case with the Giants last season and this year, Melancon, 34, is slated to work primarily in middle-relief and setup roles for the Braves. He has a 3.50 ERA in 46-1/3 innings across 43 appearances this season with 44 strikeouts and 16 walks. In eight appearances with the Giants after the All-Star break, he had a 0.93 ERA and .125 opponents’ batting average.
“I’ve done a few things (recently) to switch up,” Melancon said. “I’ve moved to the other side of the rubber. I’ve got a different grip for the cutter. Things have been really working well.”
Melancon was warming up in the bullpen when Thursday night's game against the Cincinnati Reds at SunTrust Park was stopped by rain, lightning and thunder after six innings. He would have been used in the seventh inning if starter pitcher Max Fried had gotten into difficulty that inning.
But the game never resumed, and when it was called after a one-hour, 46-minute delay, the Braves recorded a 4-1 win without any need that night for newly acquired relievers Shane Greene, Chris Martin and Melancon.
“Got all that bullpen help, and we didn’t even use it,” Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman quipped.
