Austin Riley, Brian Snitker take the high road after Braves' extra innings failure

The law of large numbers will work out for quality MLB clubs like the Atlanta Braves in the end, or during the regular season at least. Atlanta has been facing one playoff-caliber team after another. After taking two of three over Cleveland and avoiding a sweep in Seattle, the Braves fell in the first of three games vs. the Los Angeles Dodgers in Chavez Ravine. They could have had it...

Atlanta lost to the Dodgers 4-3 in the bottom of the 11th. It was all tied up at 2-2 through nine, with the Braves squandering an additional run in the first because of a base running blunder made by Ronald Acuña Jr. ahead of an Austin Riley big fly. This was Riley's first home run for the Braves in nearly a month. Atlanta would then fail to plate a base runner in the top of the 11th to cost them.

Extra innings is always a crapshoot in the regular season, especially with the ghost runner starting out on second base. Acuña popped up, followed by a pair of ground outs off the bat of Ozzie Albies and then Riley. Los Angeles would then walk it off in the bottom of the frame, as Andy Pages had the game of his life for the Dodgers in his four-hit game. Situational hitting has killed the Braves at times.

Fortunately, Riley seems to be in a good spot about this with a positive quote after the tough loss.

"Guy on second, top of the lineup, nobody out, you kind of expect to get that run in. And we didn't So, got to flush it and just get back after it tomorrow."

Manager Brian Snitker had some encouraging things to say about Atlanta's slumping offense of late.

"It was really good early, and you go through stages like this. You're gonna have to weather the storm. Pitching's been good, we've been in all the games. Just keep running them out there, and eventually we're going to get the offense going again."

Snitker hardly ever rests his starters, but you have to wonder how long the great pitching will hold up.

Austin Riley, Brian Snitker try to talk Atlanta Braves fans off the edge

While I understand that at some point the Braves' schedule will ease up a bit, nothing is more frustrating with this team than seeing the bats go cold. This is the team's greatest strength. General manager Alex Anthopoulos built this team to out-slug just about anyone. While having a leaky bullpen or a porous defense is actually worse to endure, you hate to see the Braves come up short like this.

With the Philadelphia Phillies not going away, the Braves' run of consecutive division titles is now in jeopardy. Then again, when has getting a first-round bye actually helped the Braves since postseason expansion occurred two years ago? In fact, it has hurt teams like Atlanta and Los Angeles who took care of business during the regular season, but had to wait for their opponent and got out of sorts.

The good news I can glean from either Riley or Snitker's comments is that Atlanta has been in all of these games. Very rarely have we seen this team get blown out in defeats this season. Eventually, the ball will bounce Atlanta's way in some of these tight ones. We can only hope those fortuitous bounces happen in late September and throughout October. I would much rather lose like this in early May.

Atlanta is going through it a bit, but toughness builds characters. It can also expose the weak as well...