Hurston Waldrep is set to make his first start of 2026 for the Braves on Thursday night against the Cardinals, a turn that puts him back in the rotation for the first time since late September last year. The start is scheduled for 7:15 pm EDT, and it comes after Waldrep already made his second appearance this season in a return that was far less tidy than the club would have wanted.
That return mattered because Waldrep, who was touching speeds upwards of ninety-nine MPH before an elbow injury in February, walked four hitters in two innings. Even so, the front office has decided to give him the ball again, and that decision tells you plenty about how the Braves are viewing him now: not as a finished product, but as a pitcher they still want to test in game action while the season moves on.
The opponent makes the assignment harder to read. Waldrep has never faced the Cardinals, and none of the Cardinals players on the roster have faced him either. That leaves Thursday as a fresh look on both sides, with no prior at-bats, no scouting memory built from direct history, and no easy shortcut for either dugout. For the Braves, the timing also matters because they are trying to win their first series since June 20th after taking Game 1 on Wednesday night.
The other mound name in the game is Dustin May, and his season has already had sharp peaks and rough drops. He enters with a 4.30 ERA over fifteen starts and 83.2 innings pitched, and his last two outings show the range. On June 15, he threw a complete game shutout against the Padres with one hit, zero walks and nine strikeouts. In his next start against the Royals, he lasted 2.0 innings, allowed six hits, two HRs, six earned runs, a walk and two strikeouts. That is the version of May the Braves have to plan for: capable of taking a game over, but just as capable of losing it quickly.
There is still one detail that hangs over Waldrep’s start, and it is the one no box score can answer yet: how long the Braves will let him go. His first outing back showed he could miss bats, but it also showed how much traffic he can create when his control slips. Whether he gets a short leash or a real chance to work through the Cardinals will say as much about where the Braves think he is now as the radar gun once did.
