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NL DIVISION SERIES: BRAVES VS DODGERS

October 7, 2018

Brian Snitker

Atlanta, Georgia - postgame 3

Q. Snit, you've been here with Freeman most of his time here. What does that mean for you to see him have a moment like that and deliver like you say he always does?
BRIAN SNITKER: He always does. Somebody asked me today before the game during the broadcast, like who would you pick, or the guy. And I was like, Freddie. I mean, it's always him. He's the guy that we count on. I'm happy for him that he could provide that.

Q. The job the bullpen did the last few innings when they had a lot of chances --
BRIAN SNITKER: Really good.

Q. -- you pleased with it?
BRIAN SNITKER: Yeah. It was one of those games that we talked about a lot going in, and those last three guys were really good. And they have been good. Touki got a huge out, huge out. And he was probably on his last hitter. So I mean, Max hung a breaking ball, but other than that, yeah, it was just a hard-fought game, man. That was a playoff game there.

Q. Brian, you've talked about how Acuna has sparked you guys all year, and a Grand Slam, that's quite a spark. What was that moment like in the dugout, and when he took that 3-0 pitch, was the take sign on there?
BRIAN SNITKER: Yeah. He had thrown so many balls, because he's an aggressive kid. So we hung a take. I didn't want him trying to do too much on that pitch. And he gives him that many more pitches to look that. That was huge. That was the first RBI we've had in the playoffs for our pitcher. And Ronald not missing the next pitch, that was huge for our team to kind of get that elephant off our back.

Q. During the inning do you see Buehler start to lose his release point and do you see a change in how you were approaching him?
BRIAN SNITKER: Yeah. I mean it was obvious that he was having a hard time zoning things in. And guys sense that on pitchers, I think in certain situations. So I'm just -- you know, it was just a really big hit by Ronald.

Q. Brian, what are your plans or thoughts on starting pitcher tomorrow?
BRIAN SNITKER: We're going to go with Folty. He went two innings, 50 pitches. He's good. That's just a workout. So we're kind of -- quite honestly, I'd rather start him than have him coming in behind somebody. So he's raring to go and itching to get the ball, and it's still elimination. So we're going to try and go with the best we got.

Q. As Viz went through that ninth inning, you had to get somebody up. What were you thinking? How much longer could he have gone, and how nice was it to see him get out of it and what will you do tomorrow if you need a closer?
BRIAN SNITKER: Well, I'll check with him first. He'll have the next day off. If he feels good, I'm going to go with him. He was probably on his last hitter just because of the pitches, and he hadn't been out there that long. And that next guy on deck, yeah, I was just kind of hoping he would get Dozier, because he was approaching that pitch count. Like I say, we knew we were on -- with him, it's going to be like that.

But tomorrow if he comes out and plays catch and loosens up and feels okay and wants to pitch, then shoot, we'll go with him.

Q. You had said it was going to be all hands on deck today pitching-wise. For tomorrow with Julio, could you potentially use him after Folty?
BRIAN SNITKER: Yeah. If the wheels fall off, yeah. If something happens early, we still have Julio. But, I don't know, we'll have to kind of reassess that. We really didn't have a chance to sit there. But if we win, we got a day off. We're okay.

Q. Brian, two things, I don't know if you realize, but at one point you brought in four straight rookies out of the bullpen. Does that even phase you at this point?
BRIAN SNITKER: I've said that before, with our lineup, that's what we are, who we have. I think it was really beneficial that they were already in a game. This wasn't their first post-season game. And I think that probably was a really good thing that they felt that. They felt Dodger Stadium.

But it's who we are. That's what we gotta go with. We're not going to reinvent and bring a seasoned veteran out of there. And they did a great job.

Q. And one followup. It seems like all year you guys have sort of done things that nobody really expected you would do. This is another game -- you referenced your first RBI in this series coming from your pitcher on a bases-loaded walk. What were your thoughts coming into this game in terms of sort of doing something unusual again?
BRIAN SNITKER: Well, I tried not to have a whole lot of thoughts. We approached this game where there may be no tomorrow, and we gotta play it like that. And kind of what we did.

Q. Was that the plan when you came and got Newcomb pretty quickly?
BRIAN SNITKER: Yeah, if he'd have been -- I think he had more balls than strikes. And I said that before, I told him, I just want you to get this thing off the ground. You don't need to feel like you have to extend the game. And I felt like at that point in time if I was going to bring Gausman, that was probably the right-on-right matchup that I could get. If I waited one more hitter, I probably wasn't going to get that.

And that's what I told Newcomb. I said that was a great job because you did exactly -- we needed you to start the game, get the thing in the air and then we'll take it from there and he did a good job.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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