Brian Snitker’s bullpen management blows yet another crucial game

The Atlanta Braves were presented with a golden opportunity over the weekend: swipe a few games from the Philadelphia Phillies and instill real fear into the NL East's first-place team. Instead, the Phils won three of four in front of raucous Citizens Bank Park crowds, extending their division lead over Atlanta to seven games.

Sunday's fourth game of the series was the rubber match. Philadelphia scrapped its way to a 5-4, come-from-behind victory in the series opener. Nick Castellanos rocketed the go-ahead home run off of Braves reliever Grant Holmes in the seventh inning. Atlanta took game two convincingly, 7-2. Philadelphia turned around and dominated game three, 3-0, behind seven shutout innings from Zack Wheeler.

That set the stage for a heavyweight smackdown on Sunday. Fittingly, the game stretched out to 11 innings — a proper nail-biter with strong postseason vibes. In the end, Carlos Estevez firmly won over the Phillies fandom with two shutout extra innings with ghost runners on second base. And, in the bottom of the 11th, Braves manager Brian Snitker made what is possibly the most predictable mistake of all time.

With a runner on third and two outs, Nick Castellanos strolled to the plate for Philadelphia. Atlanta made a change on the mound, subbing in... Grant Holmes, the same Grant Holmes who coughed up Casty's go-ahead home run in the series opener.

Right on cue, Castellanos rocketed the game-winning single into centerfield and the celebration was on in Citizens Bank Park.

If only there was something to tell us that pitching Holmes against Castellanos in a high-leverage spot might end poorly...

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Brian Snitker's bullpen management once again screws over Braves in critical spot

Nobody is here to call Brian Snitker a bad manager. He's plainly one of the best in baseball, having established Atlanta as one of the MLB's competitive pillars in recent years. He has the Braves on track for a postseason berth despite season-ending injuries to his best offensive player (Ronald Acuña Jr.) and his best pitcher (Spencer Strider), not to mention prolonged absences from Ozzie Albies, Austin Riley, and Sean Murphy, all of whom were All-Stars last season.

Snit knows what he's doing, but even the best managers have blind spots, and it's exceedingly difficult to manage under the present circumstances in Atlanta. Snitker's standard rotation has been eviscerated by injuries. He's scraping the bottom of the barrel. When Holmes took the mound in Sunday's loss, the Braves had already burned through five relievers, including late-inning aficionados like Raisel Iglesias and Joe Jimenez.

At a certain point, Snitker just runs out of viable options. By that same token, however, the Braves should probably strive to avoid Holmes versus Castellanos for a do-or-die 11th-inning AB. Had Snitker better managed earlier innings, Atlanta wouldn't have found itself in such a pinch.

Snitker's bullpen management has been under the microscope lately. In the first game of the series, he left Charlie Morton in the game too long, which led to a Brandon Marsh three-run bomb that put Philadelphia in position for Castellanos' go-ahead seventh-inning slam. Now, after mowing through five bullpen arms and setting up another Casty game-winner on a tee, Snitker ought to face even more heat for his decisions.

The Braves are still on track for a Wild Card berth, but rather than making inroads in a competitive NL East, Atlanta has left the door open for the New York Mets to swipe that third Wild Card spot. Atlanta is as vulnerable as it has been all season, which is not how the fandom wanted to end that pivotal four-game series.