Atlanta’s Least Heralded Relievers Did The Most

The Atlanta Braves are not the best team in this postseason, but there do seem to be more of them than anyone else. Manager Walt Weiss has appeared blithely unconcerned by the math that demonstrates that the more pitching changes a team makes, the greater the likelihood that some of them will turn to shit.

And yet Weiss persists, because these are the tools that have been provided for him. After the attrition of the regular season, he has at his disposal three discernible starting pitchers; the best of those, Chris Sale, already had to close out one game against the Phillies in Atlanta’s wild-card win, and has not yet started in the team’s NLDS. In a more normal environment, this “all hands on deck” strategy would be pointing toward a very predictable outcome: a mutiny by the crew.

But Sunday was the acme of that plan to date. The Braves beat the Dodgers, 3-2, in Game 2 of the National League Division Series, because of stellar work by a 32-year-old ultra-journeyman whose career has been dominated by surgery rehab, and a 21-year-old puppy who fetches whatever is thrown his way because that’s what 21-year-olds get to do this time of year. More or less everyone in the Atlanta bullpen was called upon to contribute to the team’s most important game of the year so far, and more or less everyone did.