Breaking down 3 key Brian Snitker decisions from Friday
3. Decision 1 – Removing Folty
In chronological order, this was the 1st big one, though it had the most impact at the time.
It was a tough call – it had to be – to remove a pitcher who had shutdown a Cardinals’ offense on 3 hits while walking none through 7 innings.
On top of that, Folty only had thrown 81 pitches… with 58 of them recorded either as strikes or balls put in play. He absolutely still had more in the tank to give – perhaps a complete game.
The situation wasn’t really a scoring opportunity, either. With 1 man already out in the inning, Brian McCann had singled, but Dansby Swanson had failed to move him to 2nd base.
Another decision had already been made by this point, too: Brian McCann was not replaced with a pinch-runner.
Snitker indicated later that had he been at second base, pinch-runner would have been employed, but pending that, he hated to lose McCann – thus holding off on that call. Doing so, of course, would probably have burned multiple players: Billy Hamilton and McCann, while also bringing Tyler Flowers into the game.
So here we are with 2 outs and a runner on first… and Folty is removed from the game in favor of Adam Duvall.
Duall had faced Flaherty before: 1 for 4 with a walk and 2 strikeouts in 5 trips to the plate.
That lone prior hit was a homer.
Snitker almost certainly couldn’t have allowed himself the luxury of thinking ‘homer’ on this AB – Flaherty had only given 6 dingers in his last 16 starts. One of those happened in Cincinnati’s bandbox; another to the Astros… 390 hitters overall.
Sure, Duvall has a power bat, but … come on, the best you could realistically have hoped for is a single or a gapper to keep this thing going for Acuna, Albies, and Freeman who were lurking behind Duvall.
So naturally he took a 3-2 fastball – upper-middle-in – and rocked it to straightaway center field.
https://twitter.com/Braves/status/1180252281318641664
The Braves did have another chance after this: Ronald Acuna doubled, but Ozzie Albies was unable to bring in a 4th run.
But the beauty of the Duvall homer was that it almost certainly impacted other decisions made later in this same game… namely regarding relief options coming later.