When the Atlanta Braves fell on Thursday, a message was conveyed to the team and to the fans… but it wasn’t a message about our team.
The Atlanta Braves lost in extra innings on Opening Day. It’s one game out of 162, but there was a particular aspect of this contest that shouldn’t be missed by Braves fans.
Have you ever had a car that you felt could be relied upon every day for any task? One that just did its job every day without fail for years? Let me illustrate such a scenario for a moment…
In the past couple of years, this hypothetical vehicle has been running into reliability issues. Some problems in the back end have led the owner to numerous trips to the mechanic for repairs.
In fact, the problems grew so bad that this car’s owner ditched his regular repair shop and tried another one across town… anything to get it running well again.
Finally, this new mechanic has declared that everything is fixed and the car is as good as new… heck, enough parts were replaced that you could think so.
But still, there’s the lingering doubt as the owner gingerly drives it. It had been good for so long, but then unreliable for a considerable period, too. What does it take to gain that trust back again?
In this parable, the ‘owner’ represents the Philadelphia fanbase. The car is their beloved team and the problems with the back end clearly refers to their team’s bullpen.
Aaron Nola pitched into the 7th inning, and you might be sensing that even manager Joe Girardi wanted to ride his horse as long as possible to see if he could avoid testing his shiny new parts right away.
But then Nola gave up the tying homer to Pablo Sandoval (of all people) and Girardi gave Nola the rest of the day off.
Now — with this situation thrust upon them, this newly-repaired version of the Philly bullpen would be called upon to determine whether all of these Winter fixes would make any differential over last year’s consistent meltdowns.
It did. The Philly pen threw 3.1 innings, allowing 1 lone hit, 2 walks, and struck out 4 Braves.
It’s not enough to think you can succeed. You often have to have the confidence to know will succeed, and in this, the very first game of the 2021 season, the Phillies did succeed: they beat the 3-time defending division champs, they held serve, and they found out right away that this year could be different for the Phils.
Atlanta Braves didn’t get a lot of breaks on Thursday.
Oh yeah — I get it: turn the wind around and the Braves are lashing balls out of the park. Or maybe had a couple of fairly spectacular plays not been made cleanly and this game could have turned around.
Heck, even the winning run scored on a grounder that was pounded into the ground hard enough as to give Austin Riley zero chance of making a play on the ball.
But for the Phillies and their fans… none of that matters. What matters is that their car is working again. The doubt is gone. It’s also exactly what the Atlanta Braves didn’t want to see happen.
All is not lost… certainly not. These teams meet six times by the time next Sunday rolls around, so there’s ample time for additional “statements” to be made… from either side.
What the Braves need to do now, though, is recognize that they missed an opportunity to put the Phillies down but beating up on their bullpen again.
So now there will be five more chances to do this over the next 10 days. Hopefully, the Braves will recognize that they may have waked up a team that is dangerous.
The Phils have offense and decent starting pitching. What they lacked was a shutdown bullpen. But now they have it… and they now know it.
The Atlanta Braves better be ready for them.