“Ponce being the one guy you could stretch out – that was really the tiebreaker for us,” said John Mozeliak, president of baseball operations. “I think in any postseason game you tend to see starters come out earlier. So, this trend has been going on for a decade where when you’re bringing in that fresh arm, you’d like it to be dynamic. You’d like it to be one that is eye-popping. And when you look at how our bullpen sets up, that’s what it does.”
The Braves’ Game 1 starting lineup revealed the reason the Cardinals carried Cabrera, Tyler Webb and veteran lefty Andrew Miller into the best-of-five NLDS.