Brian Snitker only needs to look in mirror over ‘flirting with disaster’ claims

I can't believe I watched this entire game over some Week 1 college football action. Rather than watching Deion Sanders' Colorado Buffaloes almost lose to the FCS powerhouse North Dakota State Bison in a battle of beefy bovine beasts, I wanted to see if my beloved Atlanta Braves could take Game 1 of their four-game road series vs. the most delightful Philadelphia Phillies. They should have...

Brian Sniker is old school; he doesn't do analytics. In a macro sense, he has been a tremendous manager for the Atlanta ball club, but in isolated instances such as Thursday night, he has me wanting to pull all of the flowing blonde locks out of my dome to the point where I kind of, almost look like him. What we saw was a masterclass straight from The Fredi Gonzalez School of Bullpen Mismanagement.

Atlanta has been playing fantastic baseball of late. The Braves just swept the Minnesota Twins up in Minneapolis, and had done serious damage in divisional play vs. Philadelphia and the Washington Nationals previously. Then, back-to-back nights of some truly atrocious bullpen management caused the Braves to blow a 4-0 lead to lose 5-4 to the Phillies, all because Snitker was "flirting with disaster."

Here is what he had to say after the game. Snitker kept Charlie Morton in too long. It proved costly.

A three-run bomb by Brandon Marsh and a two-run shot by Nick Castellanos proved too mighty.

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Brian Snitker's awful bullpen management cost the Atlanta Braves dearly

Look. Somebody had to win and lose that game last night. It may have only been a one-run defeat to a hated division rival at their place, a team who has had a better season than you all year long, but come on, man... Morton is the weak link in the Atlanta rotation, now firmly in his 40s. He got out of trouble all night long, but one bad pitch to Marsh after he threw 100 of them was a crushing blow.

Snitker then brought in crafty, left-handed sidearmer Aaron Bummer to put out the fire. He kind of, sort of did that, but he was pulled after only recording two outs in favor of 20-something rookie Grant Holmes. While Holmes has pitched well in a multitude of roles on the Atlanta pitching, the moment felt too big for him. You just knew Castellanos was going to take him deep and he most certainly did that.

Look. Atlanta is not catching Philadelphia in the division, but getting Game 1 in the win colum would have been huge for the Braves. A split in Philadelphia could give the Braves the necessary momentum they need going into September. Instead, the Braves need to win two of their next three games at Philadelphia to even up the series. Snitker handed a win to Philadelphia on a silver platter.

With no Chris Sale in this series, it will be up to Max Fried and Reynaldo Lopez to shove for the Braves.