Braves Minor League Recap: Sean Murphy crushes home run

Sean Murphy’s first rehab outing went beautifully as he mashed a first inning home run for the Stripers

The Gwinnett Stripers are back home for the first time in 2025, and Sean Murphy greeted Stripers and Atlanta Braves fans with a huge blast in the first inning of Gwinnett’s first win of the year. On the mound Hurston Waldrep held it down, with his seven strikeouts leading the way in a 16-strikeout performance for the pitching staff.

(1-3) Gwinnett Stripers 5, (1-3) Nashville Sounds 1

Box Score

Statcast

• Sean Murphy, C: 1-4, HR, 2 RBI, .298/.402/.471
• Luke Waddell, SS: 1-2, 2 BB, .294/.406/.481
• Hurston Waldrep, SP: 5 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 K, 1.80 ERA
• Domingo Gonzalez, RP: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 16.20 ERA

Gwinnett has finally come away with their first win of the season, all thanks to huge contributions from three players who could prove pivotal for the big league Braves if they are to turn around their early season performance. Let’s start with Hurston Waldrep, who seems to have finally taken to many of the adjustments that were causing him issue towards the latter half of 2024. The Braves made an effort to get more horizontal movement for Waldrep on his fastball, an effort that led to initially disastrous results but now has Waldrep showing more fastball movement and getting the whiffs on the fastball that he gravely missed in his time in Triple-A and the major leagues last season. In addition the folding in of a slow curveball provides a third velocity band for his pitches to sit at, and even though the pitch lacks the bit and currently the command to be a valuable out pitch it still showed the potential to be a solid fourth option in Waldrep’s arsenal. Waldrep’s command was, as typical, scattered, and that is still a huge hurdle for him to overcome, but with more fastball movement allowing that pitch to stay off barrels he has the added benefit of being able to survive mistakes in the zone more often. It was a terrific debut for Waldrep and it will be key to see how the command of his curveball shapes up and whether his fastball can maintain this season’s performance rather than sliding back to where it was last season.

Then coming out of the bullpen was Domingo Gonzalez, whose first outing of the season was a three-run, sub-one-inning disaster of a performance. Today, Gonzalez looked much better with his command taking center stage. Gonzalez got five whiffs on six swings, and the formula for him isn’t too complicated. He landed the fastball up in the zone and the slider down, and when he can do that with consistency the movement profile of his pitches always has success at forcing swing and misses. Gonzalez struck out the side in order in the ninth inning, closing out the first win of the season for Gwinnett.

Highlighting the offense was Sean Murphy’s rehab at bats. Last season in his first rehab stint for Gwinnett he brought an immediate bang by going deep, and there sure must be something about that first swing in a Stripers uniform that makes magic for Murphy. Luke Waddell, who reached base safely three times this game, laced a one out single up the middle to set the stage for Murphy. Murphy watched on pitch go by, then launched a fastball over the plate up and out over the center field wall for a 415 foot home run. Gwinnett led the rest of the way in the game, racking up five total runs off of Sounds starter and old friend Bruce Zimmermann. Jose Devers tacked on his first Stripers home run in the next inning, then in the fourth laced a 103 mph double to extend the lead to 4-1. Devers would score on a ground out from Waddell in the inning to account for the final run. As for Murphy, he stayed quiet the rest of the game. Murphy had a couple of routine pop outs and a softly hit ground out, leaving that home run (and his being healthy enough to play) as the clear highlight of the game.

Swing and Misses

Hurston Waldrep – 14

Domingo Gonzalez – 5