Breaking down 3 key Brian Snitker decisions from Friday

Sometimes things work and sometimes they don’t.  Friday night certainly had its share of key, high-leverage moments where a managerial decision was pivotal.

Atlanta Braves manager Brian Snitker takes a lot of criticism… it comes with the territory, of course, but there are a few constants about his style that should be universally well-respected by fans and foes alike:

• He expects his players to be prepared and to play the game right
• He expects them to perform
• He will defend them to the end

This is right from the Bobby Cox School of Management, which has been the way the Braves have been run since Bobby returned in 1990.

You may argue that about Fredi Gonzalez‘ tenure, but he was also a student of Cox; it’s just that Snitker has been doing these things the same way for much longer – even as a minor league manager for so many years.  If anything, he might go even further.

Ultimately, the players determine who wins or loses, but it’s the duty of the manager and the coaches to put those players in the best position to win.  This happens via the lineup, a game plan, a key substitution, positioning, and so much more.

We’ll never know all of the moves that were contemplated on Friday from both dugouts, but in this one game, Brian Snitker’s maneuvers were certainly going to be scrutinized the most:  his team was down 1-0 in the series; they were the club in trouble.

Snitker couldn’t sit back in hope that the game simply worked out in his favor.  He had to execute his plan and then adapt from how well it was playing out.

The Plan?

It was earlier in the week when the rosters were set and the rotation schedule was established.  Already, that plan had been thrown a wrench since Chris Martin had gone down with injury and Max Fried looked like a Card-killer in relief.

The team had confidence enough in Mike Foltynewicz to give him the Game 2 start, but with multiple miscues in Game 1, it became much more imperative that he have a great outing and not merely a good one.

But the Atlanta Braves also needed some semblance of an offensive outburst against Jack Flaherty, and even saying that was a bit audacious:  Flaherty had given up more than 2 earned runs only once since the 4th of July.

A little observed fact, though, was that Foltynewicz himself was on a bit of a run of his own.  Though he did give up 3 in his last “tune-up” start vs. the Mets, that was his only 3+ earned run game since mid-August… and the Cardinals hadn’t seen him since he’d been “fixed”.

In the other dugout, Cardinals Manager Mike Shildt had it a bit easier:  he had his horse on the mound and knew that he’d use Flaherty until he could go no further.

He also knew that the Cardinals had already stolen a game the previous night, and that this was the chance to really take control of the series.  He was truly playing with ‘house money’.

He had to figure that his hitters would get to Foltynewicz at some point.  Over his career, current Cardinals had 7 homers off of him, and batters such as Harrison Bader (2 for 4), Yadi Molina (5 of 15), and Kolton Wong (5 for 11) had done well previously.

So that’s how we came in to Game 2.