GDT 10/12/23: Braves @ Phillies - NLDS Game 4 Striders Revenge

The thing that frustrates me the most about this Phillies team is they essentially bought the entire roster and didn't build a team the right way. And are being rewarded for it. Sure they have some home grown players contributing but they aren't even close to their top contributors. Wheeler, Harper, Turner, Castellanos, Schwarber, Realmuto. Just annoying
 
NYCBrave said:
The thing that frustrates me the most about this Phillies team is they essentially bought the entire roster and didn't build a team the right way. And are being rewarded for it. Sure they have some home grown players contributing but they aren't even close to their top contributors. Wheeler, Harper, Turner, Castellanos, Schwarber, Realmuto. Just annoying
Click to expand...

Yes
 
NYCBrave said:
The thing that frustrates me the most about this Phillies team is they essentially bought the entire roster and didn't build a team the right way. And are being rewarded for it. Sure they have some home grown players contributing but they aren't even close to their top contributors. Wheeler, Harper, Turner, Castellanos, Schwarber, Realmuto. Just annoying
Click to expand...

Still have got but the right players and they have. But I agree with the sentiment.
 
We literally won our only World Series over the last quarter-century with several bought players. Yes, we had a healthy mix of guys who came up through our system, but we don't win it without Soler, Eddie, Joc, Duvall, and (lol) Will Smith.
 
Strike3urout said:
Ask yourself if deep down, you didn’t see it coming this way.
As of now, 2020 and 2021 were merely the exceptions in a 2+ decade consistent trend.

This is a team that is build very well for postseason play- on paper. Two front-line starters. An offense that can put up runs in bunches without relying on 1-2 superstars being hot at the right time. A deep pen (albeit not super dominant).
The reason the Braves are again watching from home is between the ears, in my opinion. They are mentally unprepared for a real championship run. When I watch them, I see a bunch of kids who just like to go out and have fun. Talented, but naive. When I watch the Phillies, I see men who expect to win.

The playoff format surely played a role. But the layoff is not enough to explain why they are still this flat in game 4. The main reason they lost is not injury or other circumstances, but that the biggest strength turned into the biggest weakness. 8 runs. Nothing more needs to be said.
Click to expand...

Preach. It has been this way since they got good with Bobby. Hell, it took Glavine pitching the game of his life and David Justice calling out the fans and then backing it up for us to win in '95.
 
A few thoughts:

Lay-off - can't be a coincidence seeing elite teams not only lose, but largely get dominated. This is having an impact . At the very least, WC teams just need to literally start like the day after the season ends and then get no rest between games.

Murphy - I can't help but think its ironic that all of a sudden the entire world is saying the lay-off impacted timing for all of these teams, and yet no one on the Braves thought it might be an issue having Murphy go from playing mostly every day, to not being able to play more than 1 in a row, and 2 max. Just amuses me - the entire fan base, and most of MLB is now calling-out the lay-off, and yet we arguably self destructed our catcher, by never giving him a chance to come out of his slump. At the very least, why not have played him most of every day for a 2 week stretch to just figure out if he actually was going to just perpetually continue to suck or just needed reps to get out of it

Rotation - albeit the lay-off is frustrating, we also can't ignore that the way the days were set-up, the Braves got to start their ace in 2 of 4 games. The Phillies had to start their three starter in 2 of 4. That is a MAJOR MAJOR advantage for us, and yet we still got beat in 3 of 4. You can argue the days off set-up favors us because with less days off, we'd have had another bullpen game in game 4. In that sense, extremely disappointing

Offense - this series still comes down to losing 3-0 and 3-1 vs. their three starter. I read we had 4 barrels all series. How many barrels did we average per game this year? This wasn't just the offense not scoring, something was seriously, seriously off. Only thing I can think of is the Phillies advanced scouting is next level on devising game plans in these short series? Its just so bizarre on the degree at which we got shut-down. All season long, even when we didn't score, this team hit the ball hard and barreled the ball. This series wasn't bad luck - we truly got uniquely shut down

Snitker - I still can't believe game 3. When you look back at this series, our pen largely shut them down. We had a 1-0 lead yesterday, in the 3rd inning. How was this not scripted. Between Iggy, Minter, Johnson, Jiminez, Yates and Hand, your telling me we couldn't figure out how to get 7 innings of scripted performance??
 
The braves weren't good since they won division in Philly. This team doesn't know how to flip the off switch back to on. I hope they can find a leader for PF and in that rotation
 
Good answers from Strider in his post-game comments last night taking ownership. Acuña went to the bus. I get being upset, but it's time to grow up a little bit.
 
For Acuna, honestly it comes down to what we've said all season. As good as he already is - and he is arguably the best in baseball - since his injury his fly ball rate is uniquely low.

In the regular season it just meant rather than hitting 50+ homers, he his 41 - still incredible, but his power was 95th percentile in this individual season, whereas his hard hit rates, etc. are literally capable of culminating in an all-all time great offensive season. His grounder rate is the only reason he was a 590 slugging percentage and not a 650+ slugging. Everyone knows if he gets that ratio normalized, he is capable of even another level.

The playoffs were unfortunately a microcosm of that. Acuna actually largely hit the ball as hard as he always does this series. His hard-hit rate against Philly was actually higher than his regular season hard hit rate - that is a fact. But his line-drive rate was literally zero and he lifted the ball into the outfield literally once. The max result he was looking at in most of these hard hits was a single finding a whole.

I'm mindful that it is hard to want to advocate for any meaningful change when a guy hits 337 with 41 bombs and had perhaps the best season in Braves history. But there is that small part of me that says he needs to get back in the lab and figure out why he keeps beating the ball into the ground.

As I've always said, it reminds me of LeBron in his first Cleveland stint and then going to Miami, where he opened up his post-game, and all these new facets. He was already the clear-cut best player in the league, but was so talented, that he had ways to get even more dominant. I see something similar in Acuna.
 
Last edited:
“I think that they’ve got a lot of energy, they’ve got a lot of confidence,” Strider said of the Phillies. “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. And like I said, we’re going to have a chance to 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 people trying to use the playoff format to make an excuse for the results they don’t like are not confronting the real issue,” Braves pitcher Spencer Strider said. “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.”
 
The Phillies had a game plan and it worked. They knew exactly have to pitch us and they executed it perfect. They did the same thing to us last year by throwing us junk and we chased it and followed suit again this year. Whoever they have doing their scouting they owned us.
 
Hudson2 said:
The Phillies had a game plan and it worked. They knew exactly have to pitch us and they executed it perfect. They did the same thing to us last year by throwing us junk and we chased it and followed suit again this year. Whoever they have doing their scouting they owned us.
Click to expand...

I'm amazed that more teams don't do it. Whatever adjustments the Braves made from last season to this one to cut down on the insane strikeout rates and put together more consistent competitive at bats went totally out the window. In sports, when opponents make adjustments against you, championship teams respond with their own adjustments.
 
Their pitchers also executed incredibly well all series. Barely any mistake pitches while the Braves kept hanging sliders right down the middle.
 
WaitingFor2017 said:
Can’t wait to watch a World Series between the 84 win Diamondbacks and 90 win Rangers
Click to expand...

What's interesting about both of those teams is neither was even hot down the stretch. They both faltered and almost missed the playoffs entirely. So can't use the narrative either of those teams got hot down the stretch and stormed through the playoffs.
 
Disappointing end to a great season. I know we say we pitched well in this series but did we really? Two games were started by Strider. Fried and Elder were terrible. If everyone on this team had the fire and energy Strider has maybe we would be advancing. Just an extremely poor showing for such a great team.

I’d like to see AA upgrade the pitching and fill the holes in this lineup. Mostly LF. Also as much as I acknowledge Ozuna was improved this yr, I don’t trust him and hate the fact we rely on him to hit in the middle of our lineup.

Good season but it doesn’t matter because MLB has decided to make the regular season irrelevant.

Hope the D’Bscks show up and shut up those Philly fans. I might be bitter but I can’t stand them. Can’t believe they made such a big deal over such a small quote. Now they are printing T-Shirts with the quote on it. It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.
 
Why was Morton DL'd in the first place? We could have just toted him and then DL'd him at some point during the series if needed. Just let the staff work on it and skip his starts.

Seems like a poor choice, but the second year in a row we had pitching oddities happen at the last possible moment.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top