NL DIVISION SERIES: BREWERS VS BRAVES

October 9, 2021

Brian Snitker

American Family Field

Atlanta Braves

Pregame 2 Press Conference

Q. Do you think this is the time where that late-season schedule and battling will kind of maybe help your guys moving forward?

BRIAN SNITKER: Yeah, I think so. I mean, they've been under the gun here for a long time now and what we've been doing. And for kind of feeling like the last six weeks, we've had to win games, and we did, we won a lot of them.

And we had some tough losses, just like yesterday. And they always found a way to bounce back. And we like our chances today with Max on the mound.

Q. Adam was just in here saying that the biggest difference he's noticed between Max the past few years is his preparation. He said Charlie has helped him out a lot. He sees him studying a lot more. Do you see him in the film room a lot more -- Max?

BRIAN SNITKER: I don't notice him in there, no. I know Max is meticulous about that. He's been like that forever. I think as he's doing this he's learning more and more about how to plan and game plan. And he's learning the opposition better. But he's never not been prepared. This kid's probably as dedicated to his craft as anybody I've ever seen.

Q. I was asking Adam about him specifically but the offense in general how you guys have had games where you didn't do much for a game or two and then exploded, and that's the kind of offense you have. Do you see that happening?

BRIAN SNITKER: Absolutely. Absolutely. It's a good offense. It's been really big in getting us to this point and allowing us an opportunity to do something.

So yesterday, that's probably -- those two guys would have taken care of anybody's offense. But these guys, they've got an innate ability to bounce back after a tough loss, I know that. I've seen it happen a lot. But it's one of those things.

We had some good at-bats yesterday and just keep looking back to the first inning, it was a time that we needed to do something. Didn't happen. They made a great play. But, yeah, you get to the postseason.

Teams that are in the postseason can pitch or they wouldn't be here. So that has a way of equaling out that. That's why you see so many -- it's hard to string together hits in the postseason. Long balls, I think, always play such a big part of it.

Q. Same thing with Adam, he had one of his rare slumps at the end of the year about a week whatever it was with the leg fatigue. At any moment you can see --

BRIAN SNITKER: There's a reason he had 113-whatever RBIs. You know what he's capable of. You've seen it. All hitters are going to go like that. You hope maybe this is the time of year everybody gets hot. That's what happens, teams that get hot usually do well now.

Q. You talked a lot about the first inning, but the ninth inning, at least you get a couple of guys on with Hader on the mound. Do you think that does anything --

BRIAN SNITKER: Absolutely. Absolutely, I think it's being a little more familiar with him, seeing him recently because there's a good chance we might see him again. So, I liked where we were right there. Like I said, I loved the idea of that former team card up there. And Arcia, he had a good at-bat, really good at-bat.

Q. You guys saw Woodruff, but in what you kind of looked at since, how impressive is that mix of pitch he has?

BRIAN SNITKER: It's a good mix. He can speed you up, slow you down. Two breaking balls. The change-up is really good.

You look at his numbers and the innings pitched, the hits, the strikeouts, it's good. It's really good. He's got a good mix there.