PHILADELPHIA – After the Philadelphia crowd roared for the final out, after the Braves went through the dugout tunnel and into the clubhouse, after the initial emotions were felt, manager Brian Snitker stood in his office. One line stood out.
“We were kind of flirting with disaster the whole game, really,” Snitker said.
This is correct. The Braves had a four-run lead, but it seemed somewhat tenuous. The Phillies were a swing away from making it a game.
They got two of those swings, and stole a win. Two homers later, the Braves were left to process a difficult loss.
They dropped Thursday’s series opener to the Phillies, 5-4, at Citizens Bank Park. The swing in the standings is rather notable: Instead of being within four games of first-place Philadelphia, the Braves are six back.
Five observations:
1. In the bottom of the sixth inning, with two on and one out, Snitker decided to stick with right-handed Charlie Morton against left-handed Brandon Marsh. The Braves led, 4-0, but the Phillies had consistently threatened against Morton.
Following a mound visit, Morton hung a curveball on his second pitch to Marsh. He didn’t get it back.
It prompted a question: Why did Snitker not pull Morton in favor of the left-handed Aaron Bummer, who eventually replaced Morton?
Snitker gave his thought process.
“(Morton) was gonna go through to (Kyle) Schwarber,” Snitker said. “If I’d known (Marsh) was gonna hit a homer, I’d probably have taken him out. And he’s a good matchup for me right there. I like Charlie’s breaking ball on him. He popped him up and the wind blew it out.”
Yes, hindsight is clear as day. And many times, a manager’s bullpen decisions boil down to this: Does a pitcher execute or not? And in this case, Morton left one up and Marsh hit it 382 feet to left-center field.
It carried and carried and carried some more – to Morton’s surprise.
“I know he barreled it, but I thought the trajectory of the ball was pretty high,” Morton said. “So when I’m looking out, I’m like, ‘Oh my goodness, the ball’s continuing to go and go.’ And went over the wall.”
The blast trimmed the Braves’ lead to a run.
The Braves exhausted their top relievers on Tuesday and Wednesday in Minnesota. It bit them on Thursday, as they needed more from Morton.
Morton hadn’t been overly sharp. The leadoff man reached against him in five of six innings. He walked four batters and gave up five hits. The Braves only needed him to retire two more batters before they’d go to Bummer against Schwarber.
Then he gave up the homer that defined his outing.
“He was bending, but he wasn’t breaking,” Snitker said. “It was kind of deep counts and making pitches when he needed to. We were flirting with disaster there the whole game, pretty much, and he kept making enough pitches to get himself out of it.
“The one by (Nick) Castellanos kind of was the tough one.”
We’ll get to that one now.
2. Grant Holmes hurled a 96-mph fastball middle and a bit in, and Castellanos foul tipped it into the glove. So Holmes tried again. He fired a 95 mph fastball, but it caught more of the heart of the plate.
Castellanos didn’t miss it.
When he saw the pitch’s location and Castellanos’ swing, Holmes knew it was gone.
“For sure,” he said.
The Phillies took a one-run lead. The place was rocking. The Braves had stunted Philadelphia’s momentum through five innings.
Now they had six outs to score a run. They couldn’t do so.
The decisive blow came from Castellanos.
“I threw the first one and he swung and missed it,” Holmes said. “I just didn’t put it in the right spot. Tip my hat to him – he got a hold of it.”
3. The Braves are adept at leaving these types of losses in the past.
“Nothing really fazes this team,” Holmes said.
It’s an impressive quality. The Braves treat a brutal meltdown like any other loss. It has to be easier said than done.
How do they do it?
“I think it always goes to (Snitker),” Matt Olson said. “The guy at the top is going to set the tone. That’s the way it’s been since the second I’ve gotten over here. I think that’s what good teams do, find a way to flush it and move on. We’ll learn from stuff that happened tonight, but can’t do anything about it now and try to win tomorrow.”
The Braves will have to flush another bad one.
4. One reason this loss stung even more: It wasted Olson’s two-homer performance. In the third, he hit a majestic 450-foot moonshot beyond the batter’s eye and to the concourse above center field. Then he launched a solo shot in the sixth.
The Braves had a 4-0 lead after the second of those homers. This loss hurt.
“We’re trying to win all these games,” Snitker said. “That’s a good club. It’s a tough loss. They’re all gonna be tough losses when we don’t win.”
Perhaps the Braves can be encouraged by Olson’s recent surge. He has four homers in his last five games.
“It’s always good to see some results,” Olson said. “But I feel like as a unit, we’ve kind of been swinging better, putting together better at-bats. It felt like the Minnesota series, we were all doing it different ways.”
5. Olson put it simply.
“It was a tough game,” he said. “Two swings, really. They had some people on base for it. … I thought our guys threw well. They just got one more than us.”
Had the Braves been able to deploy their top relievers, it might’ve been a different story. These losses, tough as they may be, do happen. They just sting much more at this time of year.
The Braves have shown signs of life over the last week or so. They’ll try to continue it.
“Hitters are starting to smash balls,” Holmes said. “It’s just a matter of time before everything clicks on one cylinder, and it’s gonna be pretty good.”
Stat to know
54-5 - Before this, the Braves were 54-4 when leading after six innings. They’re now 54-5.
Quotable
“They put two big swings on some pitches and scored five runs from it.” - Olson
Up next
On Friday, Reynaldo López will start for Atlanta, which will face Phillies left-hander Ranger Suárez. First pitch is at 6:40 p.m.
About the Author
