Brian Snitker on Wednesday’s ejection, Division Series workouts and more

ATLANTA — It was overshadowed by Ronald Acuña Jr’s heroics and Atlanta’s walk-off win, but Brian Snitker was ejected for arguing what was clearly a missed call. If you missed it, a check swing foul ball in the second inning was ruled as a passed ball, which allowed the Cubs to score their first run of the game.

As hard as it is to believe that four umpires could possibly miss such a call, the play was not reviewable under MLB’s current review system. Snitker was eventually ejected by umpire Dan Bellino. He talked about the ejection prior to Thursday’s game and hopes that someone will take a look at the situation and fix it so that it doesn’t happen in a big situation.

“Yeah, it’s not reviewable. Maybe this will end up with a good ending, because something like that’s got to be.” Snitker said when asked about the play. “It’s got to be one of those crew chief things. Hopefully they’ll discuss that and I don’t know why that would be that big a deal.”

“I told him this could be a big run,” Snitker added. “This is a big game here. We’re playing against the Cubs and they are trying to fight to get in the postseason.”

Snitker said that he watched Acuña steal his 70th base and the Braves’ 10th inning rally in his office.

“Yeah, I saw the whole thing,” Snitker said. “It would have been kinda nice being a part of it. Out on the field, pretty exciting, the whole thing. Him stealing 70, the way the game ended, the walk off. That was quite the game to miss.”

Braves opening postseason workouts up to the public

The Braves announced Thursday that they are going to hold open workouts on October 3rd, 4th and 5th. Brian Snitker said that the plan now is for the team to hold simulated games on each day. Fans will be allowed into the stadium for free with workouts starting at 5 p.m. ET

Snitker said that he thought the plan they utilized during last year’s off days was good, but that they wanted to do something a little different for this season.

“It’s good,” Snitker said when asked about allowing fans into the stadium. “I think it’s just as we processed all this and doing something different than we did last year. I thought we did a good job last year, but it wasn’t good enough, I don’t think. It doesn’t matter, you go into a playoff series and anything can happen. You know, you don’t pitch, don’t hit, whatever. You just never know what’s going to happen anyway, but I think this will be better.”

“We’ll try to keep everything like we would on a normal week as best we can. I don’t know how long the games will be. It’ll be up to the pitching, but still make it more realistic than what we did last year.”

AJ Smith-Shawver starting Thursday

AJ Smith-Shawver was recalled to the active roster to start Thursday’s game and Snitker said that they hoping to get him to around 65 pitches. Smith-Shawver missed several weeks with a shoulder issue and still isn’t built back up. He has thrown a total of 5 2/3 innings across three appearances since returning and was up to 42 pitches in his last start.