Braves blow 6-run lead in 9th inning, get swept by D-Backs: ‘We're all gonna be miserable'

New York Times

05-06-2025

In a season that's spiraling on the Atlanta Braves, the nadir may have been reached Thursday when the Arizona Diamondbacks scored seven runs in the ninth inning to win 11-10 and complete a series sweep at Truist Park, where frustrated and furious fans booed like they seldom do for the home team.
'If you were looking for a rock bottom, this might be it,' Braves broadcaster and Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Glavine said after the final out of one of the worst losses for Atlanta in recent memory.
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Closer Raisel Iglesias' woes continued as he gave up the last three runs in the ninth, his ERA ballooning to 6.75, and after the game the Braves made a move to bring up 37-year-old Craig Kimbrel, their former closer, from Triple A. Desperate times, desperate measures.
'It's a really, really hard loss,' said embattled Braves manager Brian Snitker, whose team has lost 11 of 14 games and five consecutive series, and fell to 11 1/2 games behind the first-place New York Mets and 10 behind the Philadelphia Phillies before those teams' games later Thursday.
'We're not playing well. We're not executing. It was nice to score some runs; you're six runs up in the ninth, you feel like you should win the game, obviously,' Snitker said. 'But we didn't. You gotta do your job and we gotta play better. It's a horrible loss and now we gotta sit on it for five hours on an airplane (en route to their next series in San Francisco). And we're all gonna be miserable. And we should. We didn't execute. We didn't put the game away and we gotta do that.'
The 9th inning hates to see us coming. pic.twitter.com/nuv0EQRkw5
— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) June 5, 2025
Braves fans were furious on social media, message boards and radio airwaves, many calling for Snitker, coaches and front-office officials to be fired. Some wondered if the team was as distraught as were they, the fans.
The Braves had an uncharacteristic offensive outburst, getting home runs from Austin Riley, Ronald Acuña Jr. and rookie sensation Drake Baldwin and building a 9-3 lead after seven innings. And then the bullpen, pieced together after free-agent losses and injuries and no offseason additions of note, squandered the entire lead and more.
Atlanta had won 766 consecutive games when leading by at least six runs after eight innings, their last loss coming against the Mets on July 17, 1973, when they led 7-1 entering the ninth inning and lost 8-7.
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Thursday's failures will only increase the anger that so many Braves fans have for general manager and president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos for not making moves in the offseason to shore up the bullpen and starting rotation. The Braves' only significant free agent signee was outfielder Jurickson Profar, and he got slapped with an 80-game PED suspension four games into the season, during the Braves' opening 0-7 road trip.
It's been that kind of year for a franchise that's gone to eight consecutive postseasons, but now finds itself in fourth place in the NL East, behind the Washington Nationals and a lot closer to the last-place Miami Marlins than to either the Mets or Phillies.
No one knows how Kimbrel, a Braves star more than a decade ago, will fare in his late-career return to the team, but it can't be any worse than what the Braves witnessed Thursday, when well-traveled reliever Scott Blewett did just as his name sounds — he gave up three hits (two homers) and was charged five runs in the ninth. Iglesias was called in with one out and a runner on, and only poured more gasoline on the fire.
Can the Braves fix this bullpen without making trades?
'We're gonna have to make it work because it's what we got,' Snitker said.
The Braves were a team many expected to contend for the NL pennant before the season began. Now, they are a mess.
Snitker was asked if a quick turnaround would help, since they start a new series Friday night in San Francisco.
'It's hard to flush one like this, quite honestly,' he said. 'I guarantee you there's gonna be a plane full of guys sick to their stomachs, and we all should be. We win and lose as a team. And like I said, when you have six runs up in the ninth inning, hopefully you can get three outs before they get seven runs and we couldn't. … We're gonna have to figure out a way to make that happen.'