Today's Three Things: Braves offense is quiet, but the managerial decisions don't help
The Atlanta Braves rallied late, but couldn't complete the comeback against the Reds
The Atlanta Braves lost game three to the Cincinnati Reds 4-3 in Truist Park on Wednesday night.
Here’s Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
Atlanta’s 6th inning.
Sitting on just one run and with Cincinnati squarely in their bullpen, the Braves started turning on the late innings magic. Austin Riley hit a one-out single and then stole second base.1 After Marcell Ozuna walked to put two on, Matt Olson hit one back up the middle (and just off of Elly De La Cruz’s glove) to score Riley from 2nd and move Ozuna to third. With runners on the corners and one out, Ozzie lifted one 363 feet to deep center for a sacrifice fly, deep enough where even 6th-percentile sprint speed Marcell Ozuna could score standing up.
But with a one-run ballgame and a runner on first base, Michael Harris grounded out weakly to second base and the rally was extinguished.
The Braves wouldn’t get another runner in scoring position over the final three innings.
Today’s Player of the Game
Drake Baldwin.
The rookie catcher, making just his second start of the month, got Atlanta on the board with a solo shot in the 5th inning as part of a two-hit night.
The most amazing thing to me is how he can go three days between starts and still put up a high-quality at-bat every time he’s up to the plate. His first at-bat, which saw him single in the 3rd, was a good piece of hitting against fireballer Hunter Greene, taking a 99.3 mph fastball on a line to center field. The homer was even better - facing reliever Brent Suter, Baldwin pulled a slider on the outer third to right center and deposited it in the Chop House for his first non-oppo homer of the season.
Of Atlanta’s five batted balls over 100 mph tonight, three were Baldwin’s.
He’s not the most defensively sound catcher, and that’ll come with more time, but he’s one of your best hitters and needs to be batting higher than 8th.
What You’ll Be Talking About
Brian Snitker’s managerial decision in the 9th inning.
With two outs and the tying run in Michael Harris on first, down one run, Snit pulls Eli White to send Eddie Rosario to the plate.
Just to recap the decision:
Eli White, who is an everyday player and batting .303 with a .888 OPS, is pinch-hit for by Eddie Rosario, who had seven at-bats on the season and hadn’t gotten a swing in an actual game since April 30th when he went 0-3 against the Rockies.
In case you were curious, Rosario struck out in five pitches to end the game with the tying run on first base.
There are two unforced errors here. The first is pinch-hitting for Eli White at all, although I’m assuming Snit did it because Rosario’s a lefty and White’s a righty so the handedness matchup is what was on his mind. The second error is explainable by the first - Snit was so blinded to the left-on-right thing that he didn’t consider using Sean Murphy instead of Rosario there.
Just an inexplicable decision that there’s no way to defend.
UPDATE: After the game, Snit told gathered media, including The Athletic’s David O’Brien, that he made the move for two reasons: “This guy’s (Reds reliever Emilion Pagan) got better numbers against right-handers. Way better. And I thought maybe Eddie could recreate some old magic.”
Two issues here.
The first is that while Pagan’s holding righties to 1-29 with 12 strikeouts this season, lefties aren’t faring much better at just 5-26 with six strikeouts (but four extra base hits, including two homers, for a .500 slug).
The second is that Eli White’s actually hitting .300 against righties this year, with over half of his hits, five of the nine, going for extra bases (including two homers). And again, Eddie Rosario has ONE HIT ON THE ENTIRE SEASON, and it was three weeks ago on April 19th.
Pinch hitting A lefty for A righty makes sense there in a vacuum, but not THIS lefty for THAT righty.
What’s Next for the Braves?
Atlanta’s in a position to take the series in tomorrow’s finale. Unlike a usual getaway day, this is a 7:15 ET start time. Lefty Nick Lodolo (3-3, 3.27) squares off against Spencer Schwellenbach (1-3, 3.92), who needs a ‘get right’ game in the worst way.
His first stolen base since August 20th, 2023
Not sure if it’s how other managers operate but Snit seems to give fringe players a one or two shot chance to justify their spot. Maybe like Hector Neris in the early season. If this doesn’t make his mind up about Eddie then I’m super concerned. If not then it’s an early ish season attempt to make a change
Super Rosario will always be a Braves legend. It's just unfortunate that Snit has to tarnish that memory by keep putting him in spots when obvious better decisions could have been made. Literally doing nothing was a better decision here. (Probably the right one)