“Choptober” banners on lightpoles along Hank Aaron Way fluttered sadly in a cool breeze Wednesday, hours before what would’ve been Game 5 of the division series at Turner Field, had the Braves not blown a late lead Monday at Los Angeles.
In his office at Turner Field, Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez was asked Wednesday what he might have done differently, and specifically about his decision not to bring in closer Craig Kimbrel before reliever David Carpenter gave up a decisive two-run homer to Juan Uribe with none out in the eighth inning.
He would have done “nothing different, really. Other than I wish that ball had gone foul, or that he would have swung and missed,” Gonzalez said. “Nothing different at all. You feel good about the decision.
“You don’t want to ever end the game like that, but I’m not second-guessing myself at all, on any of those decisions – starting Freddy Garcia, or not bringing in Kimbrel for two innings. I wish we could have hit a little bit more with runners in scoring position, but I know the guys weren’t trying to get outs, they were trying to get some runs in.”
He was second-guessed before and during the game about starting journeyman Garcia in a must-win Game 4, but that criticism ceased as the game wore on and Garcia held his own against Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw. The second-guessing about the Kimbrel situation? Well, that might linger.
Video from the game broadcast keeps popping up online showing Kimbrel in the bullpen, looking upset after the Uribe home run, and apparently – according to a lip-reader that website Deadspin had view the video — saying to bullpen coach Eddie Perez that he’d told Gonzalez that he could pitch the last two innings if the Braves led.
Kimbrel didn’t talk to reporters after Monday’s game and wasn’t at Turner Field during the two hours that the Braves clubhouse was open to media Wednesday.
Gonzalez confirmed that Kimbrel had mentioned the two-inning possibility prior to Game 4.
“He came in before the game and said, ‘Whatever you want me to do. I can pitch two innings, I can pitch whenever you want,’” Gonzalez said. “I’ve also had guys who’ve had tough, tough years come into my office and go, ‘Hey, I want to hit fourth.’ Or, ‘I want to do this,’ ‘I want to play center field,’ you know? ‘I want to play shortstop.’
“But I subscribe to the theory that you put guys in situations where they’re going to be successful, and you go with it. And I think in the long run, we’ve done a good job here of putting guys in position where they’re going to be successful. If you keep doing that, I think in the long run you’re going to be fine.”
That won’t assuage the frustrations of fans who would’ve preferred to see the team’s best pitcher, Kimbrel, in the game to protect that lead in a do-or-die situation for the Braves, who took a 3-2 lead in the seventh inning on Elliot Johnson’s triple and Jose Constanza’s pinch-hit single.
Kimbrel, who led the majors with 50 saves and led National League relievers with a 1.21 ERA, has three four-out saves in his career, including Game 2 Friday against the Dodgers. That was the Braves’ lone win in the series and his lone appearance.
In three seasons as closer, the only time Kimbrel recorded more than four outs was on April 21, 2011, when he blew a save in the ninth inning and pitched two full innings of a 12-inning loss that, coincidentally, came against the Dodgers in Los Angeles.
Gonzalez said the Braves double-switched and had their best defense on the field in the eighth inning Monday with plans to bring in Kimbrel after Carpenter got the first two outs. The manager didn’t diverge from the plan after Yasiel Puig led off the eighth with an opposite-field double down the first-base line to the right-field corner.
Uribe failed in two attempts to lay down a sacrifice bunt, then took two pitches for balls. When Carpenter hung a 2-2 slider over the plate, Uribe hammered it far beyond the left-field fence to send a sold-out Dodger Stadium crowd into a frenzy and leave Kimbrel and other Braves looking stunned.
“We did it before, (using Kimbrel for) four outs, and that’s what we were going to do,” Gonzalez said. “And they were trying to give us an out there with Uribe, and he goes from a bunting situation to a two-run homer. That would have been one out less that we had to worry about.
“We were going to go with four outs. And I’m sure Craig, if you tell him to pitch three innings, he’d pitch three innings. Or he would have wanted to pitch three innings. You have conversations throughout the year not only with pitchers but position players where, like I said, they go ‘I want to hit fourth.’”
Kimbrel is widely regarded as the best closer in the majors, having figuratively taken the baton from Yankees legend Mariano Rivera, who retired after the 2013 season. It’s Rivera’s track record of multi-inning saves, particularly inpostseason, that is fueling some of criticism of Gonzalez.
The reasoning goes that if Rivera could do multi-inning saves dozens of times in the regular season and postseason during his 30s and into his 40s, why not the 25-year-old Kimbrel with the Braves’ season on the line?
“That’s a different animal there,” Gonzalez said of Rivera. “That’s a guy who has done it from — I think he came up as a starter, and then I think he pitched multiple innings in the middle of the game for a lot of years. He’s done it for, however many saves does he have, 600 and something? (652) – I think he’s only done multiple innings 40 times.”
Rivera was a starter in the minors and also started 10 games as a Yankees rookie in 1995. He was a setup man in 1996 and moved to the closer role in 1997.
Rivera had 150 saves lasting more than three outs, including 31 in the postseason. He had 14 postseason saves that required at least six outs. Goose Gossage is second on the all-time list with six postseason saves of at least six outs.
Since the wild-card era began in 1995, Rivera had 14 two-inning postseason saves, and all others pitchers had 13.
Gonzalez was also asked if he considered the possibility of having Kimbrel start the eighth inning, since the Dodgers had their Nos. 5-7 hitters due up, and then have someone else ready in the ninth if Kimbrel ran out of gas.
“That’s a different animal, that ninth inning,” Gonzalez said. “That’s really thinking outside the box. I’m not saying that’s wrong. It goes back to the point: You put guys in position where they’re going to be successful. I don’t know if the guy in the ninth inning, whoever that might be – Woody (rookie Alex Wood) or Carpenter, or whoever we had down there as a starter, or (rookie David) Hale or whoever – would have been able to handle the ninth inning.”
