The Atlanta Braves are set to add a fresh arm as September roster expansion arrives. Before they open a series against the Washington Nationals, the club plans to select the contract of 25-year-old right-hander Blake Burkhalter, giving the former Auburn pitcher his first chance in the majors.
Veteran infielder Kyle Farmer is also expected to be recalled when active rosters grow from 26 to 28 players on Tuesday.
Burkhalter arrives after a winding 2026 that began with a setback. A back injury in spring training kept him out for the first two months.
Once he returned, the Braves shifted him more fully into relief after he had mixed starting and bullpen work earlier in his career. The results have been sharp.
Across 35 2/3 innings this season he has posted a 1.26 ERA, striking out more than 32 percent of the batters he has faced while walking fewer than 8 percent and generating a solid rate of ground balls. At Triple-A Gwinnett he has been even tighter, with a 1.48 ERA over 24 1/3 innings.
Those numbers fit a longer minor-league track record. In four professional seasons Burkhalter has thrown 215 1/3 innings with a 2.88 ERA and 210 strikeouts in 77 appearances, 33 of them starts.
Atlanta drafted him in the second round in 2022 out of Auburn. He went unselected in last year’s Rule 5 draft despite a respectable 3.32 ERA across Double-A and Triple-A the year before, and evaluators have sometimes questioned whether his stuff would play as a high-leverage reliever or as a multi-inning swingman. Recent performance has quieted some of those doubts.
The timing gives him a real opening. Injuries have thinned the Braves’ pitching depth, with Spencer Schwellenbach, Hurston Waldrep, and Spencer Strider among those unavailable.
Atlanta has been rolling, chasing an eighth consecutive win in a Monday afternoon game against the San Francisco Giants before heading to Washington.
Burkhalter is ranked 15th among the organization’s prospects and figures to work out of the bullpen rather than take a rotation turn right away.
For a pitcher who has already shown he can bounce back from injury and adapt his role, the next step is simply to throw strikes at the highest level.
If the command and swing-and-miss he has shown since June carry over, September could become the start of something more than a September cup of coffee.
The Braves will find out soon enough once the Nationals series begins.
