Phillies player claps back at Braves manager Brian Snitker’s playoff comments

This past postseason, Bryce Harper and the Philadelphia Phillies once again made quick work of the Atlanta Braves in the first round of the playoffs before eventually bowing out, this time in the NLCS against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Harper was electric in the Phillies’ win over Atlanta for the second consecutive year, consistently eviscerating a slew of Atlanta pitchers that looked like a shell of what they were throughout the regular season.

The fact that multiple higher seeds lost in the divisional round this year raised some debate as to whether or not the time off that higher seeds are given while other teams compete in the Wild Card round is actually detrimental to their chances of succeeding. Recently, Braves manager Brian Snitker raised eyebrows when he stated that “it’s hard to hit velocity when you haven’t seen anything in five days. So that’s my biggest thing,” per the Foul Territory Show (Via Nathan Ackerman of Phillies Nation).

Understandably, Phillies players aren’t necessarily thrilled with the insinuation that their victory only occurred because the Braves’ got rusty in their time off after the regular season.

“All-Star break it’s the same amount of time you’re off and nobody complains then,” an unnamed player told Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (per Foul Territory on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter).

Of course, the Braves were not the only higher seed to lose despite their rest advantage, which opened up a rampant debate as to who that time off actually benefits in those scenarios.