Brian Snitker’s excuse-making is the last thing Braves need right now

Right when the Atlanta Braves perhaps needed it most, they got a weekend series against the struggling Washington Nationals, a real opportunity for Brian Snitker's team to gain more ground in the National League wild card race. On Friday night, they accomplished just that -- but they didn't make it easy on themselves.

That's, unfortunately, been a theme for the Braves this season as they've been battling both a devastating epidemic from the injury bug and their own miscues throughout the entire season. On Friday, we saw just that when Jorge Soler, who was reunited with Atlanta at the trade deadline, returned from a hamstring injury to play in right field despite being the DH almost exclusively this season at both of his stops.

With that stage set, it was the fourth inning when Chris Sale gave up a fly ball to right field that was drifting toward the foul line. Soler ran toward it but seemed to pull up short of the line. That was a massive blunder as the ball landed fair and then bounced into the stands for a ground-rule double to leave Sale with runners on second and third with two outs and Atlanta nursing just a 1-0 lead. The Nats took the lead with a two-RBI double on the next at-bat.

Soler was visibly upset with himself and even apologized to Sale after the play. There's honestly no real problem with that. However, there should be a problem with Snitker's reaction to the play when asked about it on Saturday ahead of the second game in the series.

For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work on The Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot, our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop between now and the MLB offseason

Brian Snitker keeps making excuses for Braves when they least need them

Snitker was asked why Soler came up short on the run at the fly ball and what happened on the play. Rather than saying that the veteran took accountability (which we saw him do!) for a mistake, he made excuses, saying that Soler wasn't hurt but pulled up because he thought the ball was going to be foul.

You can correct me if I'm wrong here, but a catch in foul territory would've still been the third out to end the inning, right? So even if he thought it was going to be foul, he should've still been going after it full-bore to try and make the play.

In the end, it didn't kill the Braves as they tied the game in the seventh inning to win in extras on a walk-off error. But one could argue they should've never been in that position if Soler were hustling on that play. Yet, Sntiker is out here making excuses for a play that, frankly, is inexcusable. No, he shouldn't rake Soler or any of his players over the coals but there is something to be said for taking accountability, especially publicly. This was definitely not that.

There are some excuses that the Braves absolutely have right now. They don't have Spencer Strider. They don't have Ronald Acuña Jr. They don't have Austin Riley. They don't have AJ Minter. Everyone knows that creates an uphill climb for Atlanta. What they don't need on top of that is excuses for preventable mistakes and bad decisions like what we saw from Soler.

Soler was out of the lineup on Saturday for a scheduled rest day following his return from injury and the Braves closed out that one with a win. That's good but, if this team wants to lock up its playoff spot, Snitker and the rest of the team can't keep making excuses when accontability should be the more important ingredient to getting the job done.