Can’t catch these Braves
Like Acuna’s blast that dooms Yanks in 11, Atlanta may be goin’ pretty far
Call them this year’s version of last year’s Yankees, and with the ahead-of-schedule Braves in the Bronx this week, it makes for quite an intriguing series. Who knows, maybe they’ll even meet again in October.
Certainly the Braves looked up to the task on Monday night, pulling out a 5-3 win in 11 innings on 20-year-old Ronald Acuna’s home run off David Robertson.
It’s quite a feat, coming into the Stadium and beating the Yankees at their own game, with the big home run and some exquisite bullpen work.
And yet when you look at these Braves, flaunting all of their young talent, what comes to mind most is what has gone wrong with the Mets.
In short, they have what I thought Sandy Alderson would build when he took over at Citi Field in the fall of 2010 — a roster of young, athletic position players and a stable of impressive pitchers accumulated via the draft or trades, some here already and more in the minors.
Instead, the Mets have to at least consider a rebuild after a second straight disastrous season, especially as the Braves have blown past them, owners of the best record in the National League.
No wonder 62-year-old Brian Snitker was enjoying himself talking to reporters in the visiting dugout on Monday, admitting he thought his time had passed to be a big-league manager after a career spent in the minors, until he was summoned from Triple-A to take over for Fredi Gonzalez in 2016 and proceeded to win over his bosses with his opportunity.
“I was ok with never getting that chance,” Snitker said, and then he chuckled. “But when they called, I wasn’t going to turn it down. I said, ‘Sure, I’ll take a crack at this thing, see what it’s all about.’
“And I’ll tell you what: young, athletic players make this game fun. To see them out there, running around, letting it fly, that’s a cool thing.”
Suffice it to say that for all of his faults, Mickey Callaway wouldn’t know about that.
And more and more that’s the way baseball is trending. In Acuna and Ozzie Albies, the Braves have their version of Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar, impactful rookies who, at ages 20 and 21, are even younger than the Yankees’ duo.
Snitker, like a lot of baseball people, believes the trend has a lot to do with how the game has changed at the youth level, with kids of high school-age and younger exposed to high-level competition on a national level these days.
“They’re out there on the big stage a lot than they were before,” Snitker said, “with all the showcase games, select teams, and whatnot. They’re out there being watched by a lot of people, and I think they become accustomed to that.”
Of course, to best accumulate their young talent, the Braves had to commit to a rebuild, losing 95, 93 and 90 games from 2015-17, but the turnaround has come quicker than expected.
They’ve gotten a bounce-back season from veteran Anibal Sanchez, who pitched six solid innings Monday night, but the emergence of 25year-old lefthander Sean Newcomb and 26-year-old righthander Mike Foltynewicz has made all the difference, and the Braves have more highly-touted starters in their early 20s close to being major leagueready.
In other words, they might soon have a rotation akin to what the Mets rode to the World Series in 2015, except they also have the second-highest scoring offense in the NL at the moment.
Snitker, for one, wasn’t surprised that they didn’t flinch in their first taste of the big, bad Bronx.
“It’s a young group that has a lot of confidence in their abilities,” he said. “They’re not scared, they’re going to go out and push the envelope and trust their ability.”
For that matter, Snitker says these young Braves remind him of a team he saw way back in 1991, when he was a minor-league coach in the organization. After years of losing, those Braves went from 65 wins in 1990 to 94 in ’91, and all the way to Game 7 of the World Series.
“I’ve seen it before,” the manager said. “I told the guys in spring training, I see a lot of similarities to that group in ’91, with young players coming on fast. Nobody expected that team to do what it did either.”
These Braves aren’t quite there yet. But they sure appear to be on their way to an extended run of success. The kind the Mets were supposed to still be enjoying in 2018.