Atlanta Braves’ Top 10 Playoff Villains

The Atlanta Braves have entertained fans with many post-season appearances – most of these happening since the team’s arrival in Atlanta.

While we lament that there could have been better results, fans will remember the people and events contributing to shorter second-season stints.

Sometimes this was the result of a performance – good or bad – that determined the outcome of a pivotal game.  Sometimes it was a decision or a call that adversely impacted play.

Sometimes it’s even the heroic effort of a competitor from the other side.  You might choose to tip your cap to such players – but when they stick in your head for years after the fact, then the Villain moniker somehow seems appropriate.

And thus we present:  the Top 10 Thorns in the Braves’ sides in the history of their playoff appearances.

10. Umpire Paul Emmel

2010 National League Divisional Series, Game 1.  October 7, 2010.

Atlanta Braves at San Francisco Giants.  Pac-Bell Park.

This series also has the distinction of being both one of the most closely contested in the history of playoff baseball and the last hurrah for Atlanta Manager Bobby Cox.

So naturally an egregious error decided the game.

An umpire’s error.

Buster Posey Was Out.

4th inning.  Derek Lowe on the mound for the Braves.  Whatever you may have thought about him in a Braves’ uniform, he held the Giants down this night against Tim Lincecum in his prime.

Lowe pitched into the 6th inning, giving up 4 hits and 4 walks, but nobody scored off of him.

Or at least… nobody should have.

In that fateful fourth, Posey singled through the left side.  While on first, Pat Burrell struck out on what may have been a hit-and-run attempt.  Brian McCann fired the ball – “high and wide” by one account – to Brooks Conrad at second base, who nonetheless applied the tag with Posey still at least a foot away from the second base bag.

Paul Emmel called him safe.

SFGate.com’s account of the game charitably acknowledges that Emmel – who doesn’t appear in any of the photos I’ve found of the play – apparently missed the call.

Remarkably, this play did not result in Bobby Cox getting thrown out of the game. SFGate reported that “Emmel said no Brave complained about the call.”  Memories are fuzzy on that point, but certainly Conrad had to know that he got the tag down in time.

Immediately after this non-call – which- Lowe struck out Juan Uribe, which should have ended the inning.

But with Posey still at second base for no particular reason, Pablo Sandoval was intentionally walked to allow Lowe to face Cody Ross.

As it turns out, the Braves should have walked Ross as well since Lincecum struck out to end the frame.  Unfortunately, Ross singled before that, bringing Posey safely home and giving the Giants the only run they needed in a 1-0 victory.

This one is ranked 10th for several reasons:

– It was Game 1 of the series.  While it set the tone for what was to come, it wasn’t the deciding game.

– The Braves mowed through most of their bullpen the rest of the way, so by the time Lincecum might have been removed (he went the distance for a 2 hit shutout while striking out 14), Atlanta would have been running out of arms quickly.

– Only Omar Infante and Brian McCann had hits (both doubles) that night.  In other words, the Braves could easily have lost the game regardless, since none of the San Francisco bullpen had been used.

– But of course we would have liked to had the chance.  After all, strange things happen in the playoffs, as Rick Ankiel proved with a sudden lightning bolt of a homer just 1 night later.

The rest of the series was also gut-wrenchingly close: 5-4 Atlanta in 11 innings, then 3-2 Giants, and 3-2 Giants again to win the best-of-five series 3 games to 1.  Thus this single run from this early blown call was important.

This also launched the “even year thing” that the Giants rode to the World Series – rising from this series to win it all here in 2010, plus 2012 and 2014 thereafter.

That’s what Giants’ fans will remember.

Braves’ fans will only recall that Posey was out.

7 and 8. Hank Bauer and Gil McDougald

1958 World Series:  October 1-9, 1958

Milwaukee Braves vs. New York Yankees

There have been two times in the history of the Braves’ franchise that the team could have – should have – won back-to-back World Series titles.  We’ll get to the second such instance later.

Milwaukee won the National League pennant going away that year with a 92-62 record, 8 full games ahead of Pittsburgh.  The Yankees had the same record, 10 games ahead.

Indeed, it was a double repeat as these teams had gone to a 7th game in 1957 before the upstart Milwaukee team defeated the loaded Yankees.  This year, the Bronx Bombers sought a measure of  revenge.

In truth, both clubs were loaded. The Yankees put 4 future Hall of Famers on the field (Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle, and “Country” Enos Slaughter) – not even counting manager Casey Stengel.

The Braves countered with Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews, Red Schoendienst, and Warren Spahn.

But Aaron wasn’t the only ‘Hank’ in the lineup.  And the “other Hank” brought a sidekick.

With all of that firepower in their lineup, Hank Bauer had the third-lowest OPS of any of the Yankees that season.  The Right-fielder’s slash line, in fact, looked nothing like you’d expect for a corner outfielder at .268/.316/.423/.739.  Only their middle infielders  were lighter hitters overall.

McDougald was one of those, hitting .250 overall with a .705 OPS and 14 home runs.  Bauer hit just 12 for the year.

But the Braves simply could not deal with Bauer or McDougald in the World Series.

Bauer: Four home runs.  8 RBI with 6 runs scored (the Yankees only had 29 total runs in the seven game series).  .323/.323/.710/1.032.

McDougald: 2 homers and 2 doubles.  5 runs scored, 4 RBI.  .321/.367/.607/.974.

Had Milwaukee managed to pull off the victory in Game 7, then Yankee fans might forever have lamented Bill Bruton on their list of playoff villains, as he turned a .696 regular season OPS into 1.134 while hitting .412 for the Braves.  It was not to be.

But it was an 8th inning 4-spot that the New Yorkers put up to break a 2-2 tie in that Game 7 against Lew Burdette that ultimately decided the series.  Ironically, neither of the ‘sudden sluggers’ contributed in this critical frame – and all of it started with none on and 2 outs.

While Bauer didn’t even hit in that inning (going 0-5 for the game, in fact), he certainly had done enough damage before that in the six prior games just to keep the Yankees in the series to begin with.  Without him, there never would have been a seventh game:

• Game 3 – Home run and 3-for-4 with all of the RBI in a 4-0 win after the Yankees were already down 2 games to none.
• Game 6 – Home run off of Warren Spahn.  McDougald added a homer of his own to finish the scoring, a 2-1 win to even the series.

Yogi Berra?  Just .222 for the series.  Mickey Mantle?  .250.  Tony Kubek?  .048.

Only two Yankees hit better than .260 that October.  Hank Bauer and Gil McDougald.

This unheralded pair beat the Braves in 1958.

5 and 6.  Braves Bullpen, Lance Berkman

2005 National League Divisional Series, October 5-9, 2005.

Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros.

Game 1 – A 4-3 lead in favor of the Astros was extended in the 7th as Tim Hudson gave up a double to pitcher Andy Pettitte and later a single to Morgan Ensberg.

In the 8th inning, Chris Reitsma came in for the Braves to hold the Astros right there.  After a single, single, bunt, and intentional walk, the bases were loaded with just 1 out.

Another single plated a run and Bobby Cox had seen enough.  John Foster then threw more gasoline onto the fire by allowing a single, walk, wild pitch, and another single.  When the dust cleared, 5 runs scored.

Atlanta later scored twice, which made those 5 runs a bit more interesting.  But that was one game.

Cox continued to run Reitsma out in all of the remaining games.  In Game 2, he got through an inning without damage, but  Game 3 was another story.

In the 7th, with the Braves behind by a run at 2-3, a double and single left Reitsma with the dreaded line “faced 2 batters in the 7th”.  Once again, John Foster followed.  Once again, mayhem followed.

4 runs, 5 hits.  7-2 lead for the Astros as part of a 7-3 win that put them in control of the best-of-5 series.

Game 4: Teed Up and Driven Down the Fairway

That set the table for Kyle Farnsworth to meet Lance Berkman in Game 4.

Berkman hit .357 for the series (5/14), best of any Astro with more than six ABs.  He scored 4 times and drove in 5 runs.

Despite the bullpen, the Braves’ offense had given the team a chance to get back in the series by taking a 6-1 lead into the bottom of the eighth inning.  A win by Atlanta and a deciding Game 5 would have been back in Georgia.

Unfortunately, the bullpen continued to be unable to do its job.

The game swung rapidly from ‘possible blowout’ to ‘epic contest’ – at least from Houston’s perspective – when Farnsworth gave up a grand slam to Berkman.

Cox then doubled-down on despair by leaving Farnsworth in for the 9th inning.  This time Brad Ausmus hit the home run – which tied the game.

9 more innings later, the Astros walked it off vs. the star-crossed Joey Devine.  3 key home runs in this game could have changed the Braves’ fate.

This series was punctuated by occasional excellent play on the offensive side of the ball, but epic fails from the bullpen.

In total, four members of the pen had series ERAs of 9 or higher.  Foster and Reitsma led the way, so they become the figureheads for the failure.

4.  Umpire Sam Holbrook

2012 National League Wild Card Game, October 5, 2012.

St. Louis Cardinals and Atlanta Braves, Turner Field.

The Infield Fly Rule flows from a definition of the term in the MLB Rule Book, and currently occupies significant portions of pages 145 and 146.

I have discussed this topic at various times and at various lengths, so the discussion will be mercifully brief this time since it is a subject still quite fresh in the minds of Braves fans.

The key phrases to recognize from the rule book are these:

“…which can be caught by an infielder with ordinary effort…” “The umpire must rule also that a ball is an infield fly, even if handled by an outfielder, if, in the umpire’s judgment, the ball could have been as easily handled by an infielder.”

The game situation was this:  bottom of the 8th, with the Cardinals leading 6-3, Freddie Freeman walked, was forced at second on a Dan Uggla groundout, and then moved up by a David Ross single.

With 1 out, Simmons hit a pop fly some 225 feet from home plate that fell untouched, which seemed to load the bases.

Then chaos ensued.

Video of the incident can be seen here, which includes the extended discussion after Andrelton’s Simmons pop to left field found grass after Pete Kozma and Matt Holliday could not decide who would field the ball.

The video also includes the recycling program that the Atlanta faithful signed up for after the call.

Once the cups and bottled were retrieved by the grounds crew, Simmons had been ruled out by umpire Sam Holbrook who had been manning the left field line.  The runners remained, but now two were out.

So now, with first base open, the Cardinals walked Brian McCann.  All Braves fans would have liked to see Brian hit with the bases loaded in that situation.

Michael Bourn then struck out to end the threat.  No runs scored.

Final score?  6-3.

We will never know how that inning would have proceeded with just 1 out.  Momentum had swung rapidly in the Braves’ direction.  The go-ahead run would have been at the plate and the Braves – having already scored just an inning before – were seeing Cardinal-red blood in the water.

But Sam Holbrook – perhaps because he was closer to the play out on the left field line – took that opportunity away.

3. Umpire Eric Gregg

1997 National League Championship Series, Game 5

Atlanta Braves at Florida Marlins, October 12, 1997

This could be named ‘Eric Gregg and the Ultra-wide Strikezone’.

How wide?  Pitches to LHH were up to 9″ off the plate and called strikes, it seems.

This game is so memorable that Fangraphs did an analysis of it 15 years after the fact in an attempt to see if the hyperbole was even close to the reality.

From the video snippets they provided, the answer is plainly yes.

Memories have a tendency to fade over time.  I had believed this was the deciding game in the series.  It was not.  The Braves went back to Atlanta and fell to Kevin Brown 7-4 to lose the series 4 games to 2.

For some reason, I also thought that Tom Glavine had pitched Game 5 for Atlanta.  It was Greg Maddux.

The important bit was that Livan Hernandez, 9-3 in his rookie year with a strikeout rate of 6.73 that season – nearly a career high – managed to record his highest strikeout start ever on this night:  15 Braves went down to K’s…. and lost 2-1.

As fangraphs reported, the best Hernandez would ever do on any other night was 11 strikeouts.

He also normally would walk 3½ batters per nine innings.  This night it was just two… though one might have wondered what it actually took to get Gregg to call a ball.  Turns out there were plenty… 143 pitches from Hernandez:  88 strikes and 55 balls.

The Braves loaded their lineup with lefties against the right-hand thrower Hernandez, but it soon became apparent to both pitcher and catcher (Charles Johnson) that home plate ump Eric Gregg was allowing a lot of room off the outside corner with those lefty batters.

11 of those strikeouts came from those hitters.

Maddux pitched very well himself – yielding 2 runs and striking out 9.  Mike Cather pitched the 8th and also K’d 1.  Only 3 of these came against left-handed (or switch-hitting) Marlin batters.  But then throwing outside wasn’t Maddux’s game.

If it had been Glavine pitching, he might have K’d 24 hitters as the outside corner would have been stretched to the Hialeah horse track next door.

The Braves’ lone run came from a Michael Tucker (LHB) homer in the 2nd inning.  The Braves missed a golden opportunity in the 1st when Kenny Lofton tripled, but was stranded thanks to consecutive strikeouts of Chipper Jones, Fred MCGriff and Ryan Klesko.

After that… I guess you would normally call it domination, but clearly Hernandez had some help, forever immortalizing the late Eric Gregg.

Atlanta had been 5th in baseball in strikeouts that season, but it wasn’t egregiously bad:  subtract just 1 per game and they would have ranked 21st.

The Braves could have come back the next game, but that didn’t happen… but nor did an opportunity for a win on this night.  Thus another World Series appearance was denied.

2.  Kent Hrbek

It was extremely difficult to separate the Top 3 in this list. Which was worse?   An umpire changing the game so that players on the field could not exhibit their skills normally?  Or players on the field who were game changers in other – sometimes unique – ways.

Ultimately, Eric Gregg was bumped to #3 because it wasn’t a World Series situation and these others … were.

These last villains represent 2 pivotal plays that also go to illustrate exactly how a World Series can be decided on a single decision, play, performance, or … moment.  These moments are also about as different as they can be.

1991 World Series, Game 2, October 20, 1991

Atlanta Braves at Minnesota Twins, the HHH Metrodome

This was the first World Series in which all game were won at home, which led to an epic battle that ended up being one of the most closely contested in history – the climax of which was a 10 inning seventh game battle for the ages.

But it could have been different.

Game 2 ended with a Twins win by a 3-2 score thanks to an 8th inning home run off Tom Glavine that broke a tie that had been in place since the 5th.

But in the third inning, there’s a curious entry in the scoring:

Ron Gant:  Single to LF (line drive to Deep SS-3B hole); Lonnie Smith to 3B, Gant out at 1B (7-1-3).

The upshot is that with 2 outs, the Braves should have had runners on 1st and 3rd with David Justice coming to the plate.

I should probably argue that Gant wandered too far off first base, but at the same time, Twin first baseman Kent Hrbek didn’t get him out, either… except by exaggerating Gant’s balance issue a bit.

Here’s the video of the entire play, which includes 2 different angles:

My own conclusion is that Gant would have been able to hold the bag – his momentum carried him a bit too far, but it appears from the outfield camera that he could have controlled it.

However, the burley (6’4″/235) Hrbek would have none of that and took full advantage of the physics involved – levering Gant’s right leg up and off the base.

Umpire Drew Coble immediately called Gant out and didn’t listen to pleas about interference.  While this should probably be as much about Coble’s call as it was Hrbek’s leg lift, Braves fans blame Hrbek.

This is – once again – a case of “what if?”  There’s no guarantees at all that a reversal of the call would have changed anything.  But it still lives in infamy in the hearts and minds of Braves’ faithful.

Apparently, the Twins continue to be bemused by it all, too.

1996 World Series, Game 4, October 23, 1996

New York Yankees at Atlanta Braves, Fulton County Stadium.

With the juggernaut Braves having opened a 2-to-none game lead over the Yankees by pummeling them on their own turf by a combined score of 16-1, it looked to all the world of baseball that a sweep was a definite possibility for the returning and defending World Series Champions.

But the Yankees clawed back in Atlanta with 3 late runs for a 5-2 victory in Game 3, which left the Braves thinking that there was still some work to do.

That work began early and often in Game 4 as the home team built a 6-0 lead after five innings.  It was looking good for Atlanta.

In the sixth, an error by Jermaine Dye resulted in 3 Yankee runs.  Not good, but otherwise manageable.

In the 8th, Bobby Cox decided to go for the throat and brought Mark Wohlers in for a six out save.

Wohlers was greeted with 2 infield singles.  Another grounder forced one of the runners at second base, but at this point, Wohlers was still okay – 3 grounders that all could have been outs, in theory.

Catcher Jim Leyritz then came up. He didn’t even start this game – Joe Girardi did.  You might have heard of him, too.  Leyritz entered in the bottom of the 6th after Paul O’Neill had pinch hit for Girardi while the Yankees were trying to tack on more runs.

You could even argue that Dye’s error led to Leyritz getting into the game.  But we digress.

The 2-2 pitch from ohlers was a curve.  It had some movement on it, but not enough.  Leyritz had no business hitting it hard, but in a lunging swing somehow pulled it just over the left field wall.

Tie game.  The 6-0 lead was gone.

More importantly, it brought the dormant Yankees back into the contest and into the series.

It took 10 innings, but the life was sucked out of the Braves and they made now serious threat for the rest of the game.  Yankees win 8-6, tying the series.

With newfound momentum, the Yankees eked out 1-0 and 3-2 wins in games 5 and 6.  They took the crown.  And the name Jim Leyritz represents yet another impediment between the Atlanta Braves and World Series glory.

Next: A Winter's Wisler

But Leyritz is just one of at least 10 that we blame for standing between the Braves and post-season success.  It’s the history we hate to re-live. 

As it happens… we find scapegoats for virtually every failure in life – our versions of Bartman, of Denkinger, of Buckner –  but these 10 happen to be our scapegoats.