PHILADELPHIA -- What was said by Braves manager Brian Snitker following his team’s 9-1 loss to Philadelphia in Game 3 of the National League Division Series at Citizens Bank Park. Game 4 is scheduled for 2:07 p.m. Saturday.
Q: What were your expectations of (starting pitcher) Spencer (Strider)? When did you start to see him fatigue there in the third?
A: I thought we wanted him to go four was originally. And then I thought if he could get out of that third, then that’s going to be it. But it didn’t happen.
Q: He had such a strong first two innings. But then walks the first batter in the third on four (pitches). Did you see right away something was off? As a follow-up, I don’t think you got anybody up in the bullpen to warm up until after the double or something.
A: I thought still he was able to -- as good as he was throwing, we thought we could skate him through.
Q: Was there a conversation with him at all when he came out as to how he was feeling?
A: He said he felt great. He said everything felt good.
Q: His velocity on that home run was 93.8 (mph). He felt good physically --
A: He even said he didn’t know why he was asked, we asked him on that velocity. He said, no, I threw -- I thought I threw it really good, didn’t get there. So he felt good. In hindsight, he was so good the first two that, I don’t know, maybe we got kind of -- I don’t know.
Q: Just moving past that a little bit, what does it mean for your club moving forward given what Jake Odorizzi was able to cover today?
A: That’s great because in order to win this series, we’ll have to rely on the bulk of that bullpen for two games in a row. It was huge what he covered.
Q: How would you describe the environment tonight? Do you think it negatively affected some of the younger players out there?
A: Not really. I knew it was exactly what I thought it would be here. I thought it would be loud and -- just like it was.
Q: Your team’s overcome adversity a lot of times. How encouraging is it to know that you have (starting pitchers Charlie) Morton and (Max) Fried?
A: We’ve got to win one in a row right now is what we’ve got to do. And we’ve got the perfect guy out there to do it (Saturday). Charlie’s been in these situations many times. And we need to start scoring some runs also. Regardless of all that, we haven’t been able to mount any significant offense, though, regardless. We need to score some more.
Q: Your team last year never faced elimination in one game in the whole postseason. How different is this situation than anything you’ve seen before?
A: We’ve been in these games before. A lot of these guys have. But you’re right, we didn’t face one last year. But now, like I said, we’ve got to go out and win one in a row is what we have to do.
And I trust these guys because we’ve been in tough spots before over the last few years. And so they’re going to come out and lay it out there to win one more game.
Q: You mentioned the offense. Is there anything you see with guys you’ve become so accustomed to see coming through in big wins, Dansby Swanson or Austin Riley, are they pressing?
A: No, I don’t think so. You hope you hit a stride this time of year. It’s baseball -- you just never know when it’s going to happen.
When you’re facing the likes of Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola, that’s got a lot to do with it. You just never know when you’re going to hit one of those ruts. You hope it’s not now.
But, you know what, we’ve got a game tomorrow to come out and change it and make something good happen.
Q: In the past, in the DS, you get a Game 4, then an off-day and then a Game 5, knowing that this is three in a row, can you look at this score at least as, hey, we didn’t use many of our high-leverage guys and need to win two now?
A: I mean, you hate to lose. But it wasn’t a costly loss. Yeah, because you know we still have -- our bullpen’s still in pretty good shape. We’ve got guys that can pitch back-to-back days, our main guys.
And you go through those tough losses in a season where you expend a lot of energy and lose and then it takes you two or three days to recover. This kind of game got away from us in a hurry. And it’s tough, but we still have a good bullpen for tomorrow. Our main guys.
Q: You knew that no matter how you lined up your starters this series, there was some risk. Max was coming off the flu. Spencer was coming off the oblique. Did you sort of understand the inherent risk with both of them? Did you have any second thoughts about either one of them? Just curious.
A: About Spencer and Max, you mean?
Q: Yes, when you would start them.
A: No, I mean, it’s kind of what we had. We were hoping to lay out -- Max, we didn’t have to pitch him on Wednesday, the last game of the year, to try to do something. We just figured the time off and that he would regroup.
It’s kind of the hand we were dealt right there. I don’t know how we would have done anything different, really, because those guys are going to have to pitch at some point in time.
I say, we put Spencer on this roster thinking that if we didn’t use him Wednesday, that he was going to start this game and do his normal routine. We hoped to get four innings out of him. And the way he started out, I thought, man, we’re going to be able to do that.
It’s kind of unchartered territory. Because it’s the playoffs, everything gets sped up a little bit and you do things differently. He felt great. He passed all the tests. It just didn’t work today.
About the Author
