NEW YORK – With temperatures in the upper 30s and snow in the forecast for Friday’s series opener at Pittsburgh, the Braves made a change in their pitching plans, moving Mike Foltynewicz up a day to Friday’s game and pushing back knuckleballer R.A. Dickey to Saturday’s game of the series.
The forecast for Saturday is sunny with a high of 59 degrees. The knuckleball is more difficult to throw in cold and damp conditions.
“Just to try and get (Dickey) a little better conditions,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “It would affect him more, I think, than a guy like Folty. We’ll see where we’re at. We can just kind of space them right back where we wanted them with Folty behind him (after two off days in the schedule next week) if we want to do that.”
Having pitched in plenty of nasty weather before, Dickey appreciated the switch and Foltynewicz’s willingness to swap places.
“Logic prevailed there — which is great, because it doesn’t always happen like that in baseball,” said Dickey, who’ll be making his Braves regular-season debut. “They were open to (the switch). I thought it was a great idea. It’s really hard to hold that pitch in those conditions, because I’m having to hold that pitch basically with my fingernails. And when it’s cold and I can’t feel the tips of my fingers it can get kind of gnarly.
“So I wanted to be honest with them. I always want to give the Atlanta Braves the best chance to win, and for that day – while we can, with the off days and all that – why not take advantage of it? There’s also rumors that we won’t even play tomorrow. So if that’s the case it’s a moot point. But I was on board. I mean, nobody ever likes missing a start or getting pushed around, but I’m fine with it.”
For his part, Foltynewicz said he had no issue at all with moving up his season debut and pitching in the cold Friday – that is, if the game isn’t called due to weather, in which case it would likely be made up as part of a doubleheader Saturday.
“Whatever the team needs me to do,” Foltynewicz said. “I’m itching a little bit to get out there. I’m getting excited. That (snow, cold) was probably the usual opening day weather for me in high school anyway (in his native Illinois), so it’s right up my alley. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.”
The Braves figured young Foltynewicz and his 95-97 mph fastballs would be more uncomfortable for Pirates hitters to face on a cold day than the veteran Dickey’s dancing knuckleballs, especially if they weren’t doing as much dancing given the conditions.
“I would much rather face me (in the cold) than that (Foltynewicz), to be honest,” Dickey said, smiling.
