With the Wild Card round of the Major League Baseball postseason completing on Wednesday, the Atlanta Braves now know who their opponent will be for the National League Division Series. Just like last season, Atlanta will welcome the Phillies to town on Saturday for Game 1 of the series.
On Thursday, Braves manager Brian Snitker joined The Steakhouse and spoke with Steak Shapiro and Sandra Golden about how “great” the season has been for the Braves and treating this past week like a “regular work week” so that the down time away from playing wouldn't allow rust to build up.
And as their conversation continued, Steak and Sandra inquired about Snitker’s initial thoughts on what the starting pitching may be for the NLDS series now that he has had a chance to see them over the past couple of days.
“You said you saw some things you liked a lot," Steak began. "Was Max Fried the other day one of those things and should we assume he’s going to go in Game 2? Can you say anything about the way you’re putting your rotation together?”
“Max was good, it was great to him on the mound,” Snitker said in response, sharing that seeing the left-handed pitcher throwing without covering up his index finger on his pitching hand after dealing with a blister.
Snitker told Shapiro and Golden that it was important to allow Fried to experience throwing without having his finger covered up.
“Everything was really good,” Snitker added before turning his attention to another pitcher that he enjoyed seeing during Atlanta’s simulated games this past week. “AJ Smith-Shawver was really, really good alongside of Max the other day too, so that was really cool to see.
“We feel good with where we’re at under the circumstances going into this thing on Saturday,”.