Don’t say you weren’t warned. As Braves manager Brian Snitker said after Wednesday’s Game 2: “The bullpen’s going to play a big part obviously in what we’ve got going on because we lost a huge starter. We’re going to have probably two games in a row that we’re going to pitch 18 innings out of that bullpen.”
A few months ago, such a proclamation would have set off a civic gnashing of hands and wringing of teeth. (Or is it the other way around? I get confused.) As happens every baseball season, we hated the Braves’ bullpen until the bullpen became one of this team’s undeniable strengths.