Breaking down 3 key Brian Snitker decisions from Friday

2. Max Fried – 1 inning

It actually wasn’t easy to name Fried to be the first reliever.  Snitker noted that while Fried had prior bullpen experience, it was definitely out of his normal routine to both (a) have a relief appearance this season; and (b) then go in back-to-back games.

After Duvall’s blast… somebody had to come in.  Snitker called upon his young no-longer-starter.

But Fried looked electric.  He did allow a hit – on a pitch that was practically golfed to the opposite field – but also struck out 2 hitters in an otherwise clean inning.

In fact, it was almost too good, for fans were immediately clamoring for a repeat performance in the 9th.

That’s where Snitker drew a thick line.  And fans were all over his for this… while I won’t pick on any particular twitter user… well… maybe one:

This sentiment was repeated.  A lot.  Search “snitker melancon” at twitter.com to see what I mean.  It wasn’t pretty.

There was reasonable basis for that attitude:  Melancon had thrown 29 pitches on Thursday evening and was not effective in the slightest, giving up 4 crucial runs in a 7-6 loss.

On Friday night, the margin was… three.

But remember that premise from earlier:  Snitker trusts his players.  He’s more loyal to them then your favorite Golden Retriever has ever been to you.  So a single night’s aberration of performance isn’t going to make him forget about the great work preceding that single point of failure.

He had already declared early on (citing broadcast reports) that Mark Melancon would be the 9th inning guy… and true to his word, Mark Melancon appeared.

Let’s get to that last crucial decision.

1. Sticking With Melancon

It wasn’t an entirely smooth sail in that 9th inning.  The Cardinals threw the heart of their lineup at the Atlanta Braves closer and some of them came through.

After a Tommy Edman groundout, Paul Goldschmidt singled.

After that, Marcel Ozuna also singled.  Now the tying run is up with just 1 out.

This brings us to the secondary impact of the Duvall homer:  if you were nervous about having Melancon in the game at all, how nervous would you have been if the score had only been 1-0?

Those extra runs allowed Snitker a small breathing space to allow him the luxury of keeping Melancon in for a couple of additional batters… and he did.

Melancon then responded by striking out an extremely tough hitter in future-Hall-of-Famer Molina (12.8% K rate on the year), and then Kolton Wong (15.1%).

Wow.

It took 22 pitches, but they were biting well.  The mix – with Brian McCann still in the game and calling it extremely well – was clearly effective.

More from Tomahawk Take

• Braves News: Braves re-sign Stephens, Will Atlanta extend Max Fried?, more
• Notable Atlanta Braves Reunions Since 2003: Pitcher Edition
• Braves News: Braves re-sign Jackson Stephens
• Braves News: Braves prospect rankings, Correa deal with Mets at risk, more
• Why the Atlanta Braves won’t extend Max Fried

Many – if not most – managers would not have stayed with their closer in that situation.  Snitker did and it worked out for the Atlanta Braves.

Friday – the Right Buttons

It’s easy to criticize when things fail, and it’s easy to make hindsight decisions after the fact.

Mike Shildt will be subject to some backlash for leaving Flaherty in too long, but he could (correctly) argue that Flaherty was still his best option.

Yes:  these calls made last night could have blown up in Snitker’s face.  On this date, his players made sure that they didn’t.

The one that was probably most likely to fail was the Duvall pinch-hit assignment.  Even in this case, “failure” meant that the Braves didn’t score an insurance run and Folty was out of the game in favor of Fried and Melancon.

This hindsight suggests that the moves might have ‘worked’ anyway, though the 9th inning would have been a lot more stressful… and clearly it already was regardless.

All of this came from Snitker being consistent to his own values as a manager… and this is exactly why his players run through walls for him:  not because the decisions are always right, but that the decisions trust those players to do the best they can.