Braves confront reality: ‘It was their time to beat us this year'

Braves confront reality: ‘It was their time to beat us this year' originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

While the postseason fates of the Braves, Dodgers and Orioles have left the baseball world assessing and reassessing MLB's playoff format, key members of Atlanta's organization are calling "bull" on the idea that the Phillies sent them home in the NLDS for a second straight year because of the long layoff.

"The people trying to use the playoff format to make an excuse for the results they don't like are not confronting the real issue," Cy Young candidate Spencer Strider, beaten by the Phillies in Games 1 and 4, told reporters.

"You're in control of your focus, your competitiveness, your energy. If having five days means you can't make the adjustment, you have nobody to blame but yourself."

"We're going to have to change or improve the way we focus and prepare for the postseason."

The Braves did switch up their preparation this time. Rather than simply take batting practice during their five days of waiting during the wild-card round, they played intrasquad games in front of fans. Pitchers went relatively deep into those games.

But it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough of a recreation of facing a team like the Phillies or playing at Citizens Bank Park.

The Diamondbacks are already reportedly piping in extra crowd noise during their workouts in Arizona to try to replicate the atmosphere of South Philly. No easy task.

"Last two years in the postseason, they've done everything right," Michael Harris II told The Athletic. "They've gotten their fans into it early, put pressure on the other team so the fans can stay in it. They put pressure on the other team and that kind of helps throughout the whole nine innings.

"It's just like last year, it happened the same exact way."

Ronald Acuña Jr., the likely NL MVP, and Matt Olson, the majors' home runs and RBI leaders, went a combined 6-for-30 in the NLDS with one extra-base hit. The Phillies' best players performed. The Braves' best players didn't. Austin Riley did his part, and Harris made a pair of spectacular catches to rob the Phillies in Games 2 and 4, but that was pretty much it. The Phillies' pitching staff was lights-out against the toughest lineup in baseball.

Aside from Riley, the Braves hit .161.

"All of them stepped up," Braves catcher Travis d'Arnaud told The Athletic. "Ranger (Suarez) had a tremendous series, Zack (Wheeler) had a tremendous game, (Aaron) Nola, their whole bullpen. Their pitching was unbelievable. I don't know, it was their time. It was their time to beat us this year."

The depth of the Phillies' pitching staff stood out in the NLDS. Beyond having three starters they trust this time of year in Wheeler, Nola and Suarez, they have four relievers from each side they feel they can turn to late in games: right-handers Craig Kimbrel, Seranthony Dominguez, Jeff Hoffman and Orion Kerkering, and lefties Jose Alvarado, Matt Strahm, Gregory Soto and Cristopher Sanchez.

All except Sanchez appeared in high-leverage spots during the 3-1 series win over the Braves. In Game 4, manager Rob Thomson acted as aggressively as he did throughout the 2022 postseason, using all three of Dominguez, Alvarado and Kimbrel before the seventh inning was over. Hoffman's only two run-scoring appearances in the last two months came against the Braves, so Thomson preferred Soto and Strahm in the ninth inning Thursday night. Soto put runners on the corners but Strahm recorded three outs on eight pitches to end the series.

Strahm was not the expected choice to close out the NLDS, but the Phillies have a lot of weapons on their pitching staff. More, clearly, than the Braves. Atlanta had just two lefties in its bullpen for the series in A.J. Minter and Brad Hand. Hand struggled most of the year with an ERA approaching 6.00. Bryce Harper took him deep in Game 3.

Had Atlanta been better prepared for the Phillies with more lefties, there's a higher likelihood that Bryce Elder never would have faced Harper in the series-altering third inning of Game 3, when the Phillies scored six runs. The Braves didn't want to burn a lefty so early. Perhaps they should look to Thomson's aggressiveness these last two postseasons.

"I think that they've got a lot of energy," Strider said. "They've got a lot of confidence. We are a really good club at coming to the park every day over the course of the year and letting our talent come out. And I think in the postseason, in such a confined sample size, you're tossing a lot of those long-term things out the window.

"Like I said, we're going to have to change or improve the way we focus and prepare for the postseason. There's just no other way around it. It's a tough reality to confront, but it's the only way we're going to change the results."

The Phillies are the last team left from the East Coast. The regular-season win totals of the four remaining clubs were 90, 90, 90 and 84. The Diamondbacks will be a tough opponent, but the Phillies could not have asked for a better draw, with home-field advantage in the NLCS and again in the World Series if they face the Astros rather than the Rangers. Without winning the NL East, they've reaped most of the benefits of a division-winner.