Atlanta Braves’ Blair one of many great young arms in MLB

Young pitchers like the Atlanta Braves’ Aaron Blair are pitching much better than their older teammates in 2016.

Nothing about the situation looked good for the Atlanta Braves yesterday heading into the first game of their weekend series against the mighty Chicago Cubs. The Cubs had the best record in the majors, a +74 run differential and were sending a grizzled veteran with two World Series rings to the mound.

The Braves were 5-17, had been out-scored by more than 40 runs and were sending a 23-year-old to the mound. He was making his second career start.

Guess what? It was a great game.

The Cubs ended up winning the game 6-1 and were buoyed by outfielder Matt Szczur’s first career grand slam. But the young Braves starter, Aaron Blair, more than held his own against the Cubs’ Jon Lester. Blair went six innings and allowed just one run on two hits and three walks to one of the best offenses in baseball. He matched Lester, who went seven innings and allowed one run on 10 strikeouts, pitch for pitch.

This was by no means an isolated incident. Young pitchers are taking over starting rotations, and they’re a lot better than that aging veteran at the back of your favorite team’s rotation. Here are some of last night’s other highlights:

Sean Manaea of the Oakland Athletics and Michael Fulmer of the Detroit Tigers made their big league debuts at 24 and 23 years old, respectively. Manaea pitched five innings and allowed four runs against the Houston Astros while Fulmer held down the Minnesota Twins to two runs on seven hits in five innings.

Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Aaron Sanchez, 23, pitched seven scoreless innings in a 6-1 win over the Tampa Bay Rays. He threw 71 strikes in 103 pitches and struck out six while only allowing six hits.

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Boston Red Sox pitcher Henry Owens, 23, went toe-to-toe with New York Yankees starter Masahiro Tanaka, throwing six innings and allowing two runs on six hits in a 4-2 win by the Red Sox.

New York Mets starter Steven Matz, 24, pitched six shutout innings in a 13-1 rout of the San Francisco Giants. The Giants’ starter was 2007 National League Cy Young Award winner Jake Peavy, who lasted two innings and gave up six runs.

The Miami Marlins’ Adam Conley, 25, flirted with a no-hitter against the Milwaukee Brewers, who sent 23-year-old Zach Davies to the bump.

Young pitchers will soon take over the game from older players, if they haven’t already. According to FanGraphs, of the top 20 pitchers in fielding independent pitching, six are under 25 years old. Also, six pitchers from Baseball Prospectus’ top 101 prospect list have made their major league debuts this season.

With so many good young pitchers in the game right now — and there are lots more on the way — teams are embracing the game’s youth movement more and more by the day. Once these young starters get comfortable, they’ll start pushing out older, aging pitchers.

And they should, because that prospect in Triple-A is probably better than the aging pitcher at the back or middle of the rotation. Just look at how pitchers ages 21-24 are faring compared to the rest of the league:

The 21-24 group has the best ERA, FIP, strikeout-to-walk ratio and batting average on balls in play of the age brackets. Basically, all those kids who should be cutting their teeth are already No. 3 starters. Or better. They might have never pitched in the majors and could still be better than 60 percent of their team’s starting rotation.

Some of them are scary good. In addition to the players mentioned above, the Mets’ Noah Syndergaard, the Marlins’ Jose Fernandez, the Philadelphia Phillies’ Vincent Velasquez and a resurgent Taijuan Walker of the Seattle Mariners are a few of the many pitchers who are 24 or younger. (All four just mentioned have a FIP under 2.50.)

Next: How much longer for Felix Hernandez?

With steroids having (mostly) been cleaned out of the game and teams beginning to dabble in new frontiers of performance science, it makes sense to take advantage of and invest in players who are approaching their athletic peak, not on the downward slope.