That quirky thing the Braves tried lately, batting the pitcher eighth? It’s dead until further notice.
Braves manager Brian Snitker said he’s going back to the traditional way of doing batting-order business. When the team returns to National League games Thursday with the opener of a four-game series at Miami, pitcher Mike Foltynewicz will bat ninth.
And Brandon McCarthy will bat ninth Saturday. And Mike Soroka on Sunday. And so on.
“I don’t like it,” Snitker said of batting his pitcher eighth instead of ninth, which he did for seven consecutive games before the past two nights of interleague games at Tampa Bay, where the designated hitter was used.
“We may go back and do it some. I didn’t like it when I did it before. I did it for a specific purpose, was the reason I felt like we did it before. But I’m going to go back to the pitcher hitting ninth,” Snitker said.
The specific purpose he cited upon initially making the move to bat the pitcher eighth and move leadoff man Ender Inciarte to the ninth spot was that he hoped it would help get Inciarte going at the plate. The thought being that if he relaxed a little out of the leadoff spot, he might start hitting the ball with authority as he did last season.
Inciarte went 6-for-12 with four extra-base hits in his first three games batting ninth April 29-May 2, but was hitless in the next five and snapped an 0-for-19 skid with an RBI single in the second inning Wednesday (he batted seventh Tuesday and Wednesday after seven games in the ninth spot).
Snitker said it felt like the pitcher came to bat more in some big situations hitting eighth, plus he didn’t like the added difficulty of making double-switches at times with the pitcher in the eighth spot.
“It’s only a difference of one spot, but it seems like the pitcher is always coming up when they hit eighth, every time you turn around,” Snitker said. “And there’s not a good double-switch a lot of times in that one spot (with the pitcher hitting eighth) if you need to stretch an inning or get a pitcher through. So I’m going to go back to the other. ...
“As we’re playing all these games, we’re going to need some (pitchers) to finish and inning and then go back out there. It’s just easier to find a double-switch better with them hitting ninth.”
