ATLANTA — It’s not as if Atlanta Braves manager Brian Snitker didn’t hint more than once that he would do things differently in the playoffs than during the regular season.
On Friday, he said, “It’s the postseason. It’s different. It is different. The game’s played different. You do different things.”
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And before the Division Series opener against the Phillies on Saturday, after announcing a lineup that was different and being asked about the changes, Snitker said, “A lot of their heavy-leverage guys are left-handed, and (we’re) just trying to get the right-handers up there more. It’s something … we’ve done in the past. This is the postseason. This is different than the last 162 games we played. And a big part of their bullpen are left-handed guys.”
Snitker moved right-handed slugger Austin Riley from the third spot in the order, where he’d hit in 150 games during the season, to second, where he had hit once. He dropped Ozzie Albies from second, where the switch-hitting second baseman had batted since mid-June, to the cleanup spot, and switched Matt Olson, the MLB home run and RBI leader, to the third spot from cleanup, where he’d batted since mid-June.
The second-guessing began immediately in the hours leading up to the game and intensified during and after a 3-0 loss that put the Braves in a bad spot in this best-of-five series. The Phillies’ top starters, Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola, are lined up to start Games 2 and 3.
The Braves feel good about their chances Monday with ace Max Fried starting Game 2, but Fried has only made one start in 3 1/2 weeks due to a recurring blister on his left index finger. The Braves haven’t said who’ll start Game 3 on Wednesday in Philadelphia, but it’s expected to be Bryce Elder, who struggled in the second half of his first full season and looked like he was out of gas in his last three starts.
That’s why this Game 1 loss felt a lot more problematic than some in the past for Braves followers. Because they lost Saturday in a game in which record-breaking strikeout artist Spencer Strider, the Braves’ only completely healthy and high-performing starter, did his part with seven strong innings (two runs, one earned). Meanwhile, Braves hitters, the most feared assemblage in baseball, stumbled badly, particularly in big situations.
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And it had nothing to do with where they hit in the order, as Riley and other Braves replied when asked about it afterward. (By the way, a lot of people seem to have forgotten that Snitker also made postseason-specific lineup changes in 2021, when the Braves won the World Series.)
The Braves, the highest-octane offense in baseball this season, the first team in history to slug .500 for an entire season, a team that tied the MLB single-season record with 307 homers, managed just five hits Saturday, all singles, against Phillies left-hander Ranger Suárez and six hard-throwing relievers: lefties José Alvarado and Matt Strahm, and righties Jeff Hoffman, Seranthony Domínguez, Orion Kerkering (a 22-year-old who debuted Sept. 24 and hadn’t faced the Braves) and closer Craig Kimbrel.
The Braves went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position, and those five opportunities couldn’t have been any bigger given the timing. Braves hitters struck out three times with multiple runners on in the fourth and fifth innings — Michael Harris II with bases loaded to end the fourth, Ronald Acuña Jr. and Riley with runners on the corners to end the fifth.
Then in the eighth inning, the Braves’ last prime scoring opportunity, after Acuña’s leadoff walk and Riley’s single, Olson swung at a would-be ball four from Strahm, fouling it off. If he’d walked, the bases would’ve been loaded with no outs and Albies and then Marcell Ozuna coming to bat against Strahm, with no one up in the Phillies’ bullpen at that time.
Instead of a walk, Olson lined out to center field on the next pitch. Then Albies hit a 103-mph one-hopper that shortstop Trea Turner turned into a spectacular inning-ending double play, diving to his left to make the stop and coming to his knees to make a quick backhanded flip to second to begin a 6-4-3 highlight-reel play that ended the inning and any realistic hope for a comeback from three runs down.
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“That was kind of the finishing touch, for me,” Riley said. “You think about that — that gets through, I’m on third, run scores, maybe Ozzie’s on second, who knows? That was kind of momentum-killing right there.”
But did any of those missed opportunities have anything to do with the lineup changes? No. Acuña was still leading off. Riley was still hitting in front of Olson. The same first four hitters the Braves have used were in the top four Saturday, and the changes in the lineup positions of three of them didn’t negatively impact the Braves. Braves hitters did that on their own.
Still, many asked, why change something that worked so well all season? Valid point. Except the Braves knew this wasn’t going to be like a regular-season game. They didn’t just make those changes on a whim. They had a specific reason.
The Phillies followed a bold strategy that manager Rob Thomson and his staff had devised going in — to have a quick hook for Suárez, perhaps after just one time through the Braves’ loaded lineup, and then turn things over to a bullpen that has been strengthened exponentially since last year. Suárez went a little longer — 1 1/2 times through the order — but was pulled at the first sign of trouble, after giving up a two-out single to Olson followed by a fielder’s choice grounder by Albies that wasn’t played particularly well by the Phillies and resulted in no outs and left two runners on base.
In came Hoffman, who walked Ozuna before striking out Harris.
In a regular-season start, Suárez doesn’t get pulled that soon. The Phillies would never plan to use six relievers in a regular-season game, not unless it was a specific bullpen game. But they can in the postseason, and will in Suárez games, though certainly not when Wheeler or Nola starts, which is why it shouldn’t surprise anyone if Snitker reverts to his regular lineup against Wheeler. If he does, plenty will surely suggest it was because of Saturday’s outcome, but that won’t be the case.
The Braves knew Suárez would get pulled early. The Phillies had said so leading up to the game.
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That’s why Snitker batted Albies, who had a majors-leading .391 average and 1.023 OPS against lefties this season, behind Olson. If the Phillies brought in a lefty to face Olson — he didn’t face a right-hander all night — then that lefty would also have to face Albies, followed by Ozuna, who had a .635 slugging percentage and .980 OPS against lefties.
There’s an extra off day in the NLDS because MLB didn’t want all division-series games in each league played on the same days and travel days with no games played. The Phillies intended to exploit that schedule by utilizing six or more relievers in the opener, before an off day Sunday.
The Phillies knew that if there was even a slight weakness in the Braves’ deep and balanced lineup, it was that they didn’t crush against high-velocity fastballs like they did against everything else, as The Athletic’s Matt Gelb noted in an explanation of Philly’s bullpen-centered game plan.
In winning Game 1 of the 2022 NLDS against the Braves, the Phillies also started Suarez (for 3 1/3 innings) and six relievers, four of whom aren’t with the team anymore, including Brad Hand, now a Brave. This year’s edition of the Phillies bullpen is built around velocity, like most assembled by president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski. But it’s better, deeper, more reliable than a year ago.
“I think they did a great job of addressing their bullpen issues from last year, and they got multiple weapons that they can go to,” Snitker said after six Phillies relievers pitched 5 1/3 scoreless innings of four-hit ball Saturday, with two walks and four very big strikeouts.
In addition to the three referenced previously — Harris with bases loaded in the fourth, Acuña and Riley with two on to end the fifth — there was also Domínguez’s strikeout of Sean Murphy after Orlando Arcia’s leadoff single in the fifth.
“This (Braves) lineup is really good, so we’ll expect more going forward,” Murphy said. “Made it a little harder on ourselves, but we’ll be fine, bounce back. We’ve got another game.”
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They’ve got another game on Monday. But if the Braves don’t hit better against Wheeler than they did against Suárez and the band of Phillies bullpen arms, they might be on the brink of another abrupt postseason exit.
(Photo of Brian Snitker and Marcell Ozuna: John Bazemore / Associated Press)
