Sports Daily: What should Snitker do?

Hey, y’all.

Voting for next month’s MLB All-Star game at Truist Park is now open. It’s hard to justify casting a ballot for many Braves, given their … collective capacity for disappointment so far this season.

But you know who always gets the nod? Ken Sugiura, our very own AJC all-star.

Quick links: A new Georgia Tech AD watch list | GHSA’s reclass plan | Bijan gets explosive

LOST AND LOOKING FOR A JOLT

Credit: Colin Hubbard/AP

Credit: Colin Hubbard/AP

Every Thursday, AJC columnist Ken Sugiura officially joins the Sports Daily party. This week he’s writing a whole bunch about the Bravos.

Take it away, Ken.

What do you do if you’re Brian Snitker?

The Braves loaded the bases in the eighth and ninth innings but scored just one run in Wednesday’s 2-1 loss to the Diamondbacks at Truist, continuing the team’s abysmal run. They’ve now lost five series in a row, three at home and three against teams with records under .500.

🫣 Five of the six outs in the eighth and ninth were recorded via strikeout — including two by Michael Harris II in which he swung at four balls that MLB.com tracked as out of the strike zone.

Answering a question about Harris’ plate discipline, Snitker said, “Yeah, you want to see him have it,” and went on to acknowledge the inherent difficulty of delivering at the plate with the game on the line and wanting to come through.

“But in the eighth, we have to put the ball in play,” he said. “Regardless of who you’re facing, you have to put the ball in play. And we didn’t do it. We have to be better. We have to make it happen. We’re the only ones who can change that, and we have to be better. We have to put the ball in play, it’s as simple as that. We’re not doing it.”

It’s a far more forceful tone than Snitker normally adopts. Lately, it’s been answers along the lines of “We’ve just got to wait until we get it going.”

🫣 It would make you think a) he has been even more direct with the team and b) he’s running out of answers. The patience that he has shown over and over throughout his term at the Braves helm has not been rewarded.

I don’t know where to place blame. Snitker’s not the one at the plate. But at the same time, whatever Snitker and hitting coach Tim Hyers are trying is not working.

The players have done this before. Snitker and Hyers (who has been a part of two World Series champion teams as a hitting coach) have done it before.

It’s utterly confounding.

RILEY SUMS THINGS UP

And it isn’t only observers that feel this way.

Before Wednesday’s game, third baseman Austin Riley offered up an answer that made it clear he’s as mystified as everyone else, saying the team takes one step forward and two steps back.

😵‍💫 To wit: “It’s like, (I) have a good game where it’s like, ‘OK, felt good. Swung at good pitches, hit some mistakes’ and then, next day, it feels like it’s back to the drawing board.”

That’s not what you want to hear from a two-time All-Star and the team’s highest-paid player.

Whether the reassignment of third base coach Matt Tuiasosopo was intended as a message to the team or not, it has not helped the team from a performance standpoint.

😵‍💫 Regardless, the offense needs some kind of jolt. The easy thing to think of is Snitker going ballistic in the clubhouse or the always popular players-only meeting. Any guess is as valid as the next, but I don’t know that that’s the answer.

I don’t think the problem is players needing a fire under them. It would seem as though it’s more about the team losing confidence at the plate and being tight.

That’s why I don’t think doing something to get the team’s attention like that is necessarily the solution. It would seem more like it needs some sort of spark to distract the team from its frustration.

It could be anything.

😵‍💫 It happens far less often than it used to because of instant replay, but I wonder if Snitker getting ejected might be a useful jolt. He has yet to be tossed this season. He has a career total of 20 through 10 seasons. Fourteen of them were in his first four seasons.

ENDING ON A HIGH NOTE

Credit: Colin Hubbard/AP

Credit: Colin Hubbard/AP

Chris Sale’s brilliance should not be overlooked. Wednesday, he went six innings with three hits and one run allowed, striking out 10 while walking four. He was the game’s wholly undeserving winner. It’s the second time in three starts in which he has been given the loss in a 2-1 Braves defeat.

In his past seven starts, he has averaged 6.5 innings per start with an ERA of 1.39 and 32 hits allowed.

Sale is one of two pitchers this season who have had a seven-game stretch in which they threw at least 40 innings with an ERA of 1.39 or less with 32 hits allowed.

(The other is, of course, the Yankees’ Max Fried.)

Thanks Ken! Y’all stay tuned for a special postgame edition of the Braves Report after today’s tilt with the D-backs. First pitch: 12:15 p.m.

MEANWHILE, AT GEORGIA TECH …

While former athletic director J Batt was ingratiating himself to the folks at Michigan State, Georgia Tech tapped Jon Palumbo — the athletic department’s existing COO and executive deputy AD — as his interim replacement.

Beat writer Chad Bishop just dropped a new list of potential candidates to keep an eye on, too.

🐝 On the diamond: Your new Yellow Jackets baseball coach is James Ramsey, who spent seven years as an assistant under now-retired legend Danny Hall.

HIGH SCHOOL STATUS QUO

The Georgia High School Association caused quite the stir when it first pitched eliminating its enrollment-based classification system in favor of one influenced by on-the-field performance. Think “European soccer teams getting promoted or relegated to different leagues based on how good (or bad) they are.”

Actually, don’t.

Because the GHSA just tabled the proposal for at least a year.

“It was time to move forward and start clearing the table of stuff that people weren’t interested enough in,” committee chairperson Curt Miller said.

🏆 More prep news: We’ve got a list of all 183 state title winners from this past academic year. Check ‘er out to see how your favorite school performed.

(My alma mater won a dance championship. Count it!)

😬 And a mea culpa: In Wednesday’s edition, my addled little brain suggested Marist High basketball star Kate Harpring had committed to play at Georgia Tech, just like her dad. She has not yet announced a college decision.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

Wanna get unreasonably excited about NFL football on June 5?

This should help: Falcons running back Bijan Robinson — already a monster on the field — really wants to break off longer, more game-changing runs this season.

And he’s not being shy about it.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Thanks for reading to the very bottom of Sports Daily. Questions, comments, ideas? Contact me at tyler.estep@ajc.com.

Until next time.