Wednesday’s matchup between the Atlanta Braves and the Milwaukee Brewers featured a special four-man broadcast crew from the Braves consisting of Tom Glavine, Chipper Jones, John Smoltz, and Jeff Francoeur. And as you may expect, all four stepped up to defend their former team when home-plate umpire Brian Walsh made several questionable calls that went against Atlanta.
Things particularly took a turn when Braves right fielder Jorge Soler came up to the plate in the bottom of the fifth inning. The first two pitches he saw in the at-bat appeared to be below the strike zone, but were called strikes by Walsh.
The second pitch in particular got the attention of the entire broadcast crew, who were shocked after watching a replay of the pitch.
“Wow, and he gives him that pitch,” said Jones.
“He’s given two in a row,” added Smoltz. “The one before that was even lower.”
“That is ridiculous,” added Jones.
The Braves broadcast team (and Braves manager Brian Snitker) were not thrilled with multiple pitches below the zone being called as strikes for Jorge Soler.
Snitker would be ejected during Soler’s at-bat for arguing the calls with home-plate umpire Brian Walsh. pic.twitter.com/Y0vRiyOBDw
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 8, 2024
Braves manager Brian Snitker was then shown arguing with Walsh over the back-to-back strike calls.
Jones offered some foreshadowing, suggesting that it could end up resulting in Snitker having an early night and getting himself ejected.
“Welp, Snit is from the Bobby Cox school of managing… Yeah, yeah, you’re seeing he’s getting his money’s worth,” said Jones.
Right on cue, Walsh had heard enough from the Braves dugout, ejecting Snitker from the game, which the broadcast team also broke down.
“Yup, I knew it was coming,” said Jones. “I was just fixing to say that you could see Snit get thrown out of this game.”
“I think he’s giving us a show boys,” added Francoeur.
“This will be the first Braves ejection of the year,” Smoltz said. “Get em’ Snit.”
“It’s a joke,” said Jones.
“Well, he’s warranted in doing this,” said Glavine. “It’s been a very inconsistent strike zone, mostly gone against the Braves. You’ve got a little bit of a frustrating time going on right now. So Snit is going to get his money’s worth and fire his folks up at the same time.”
All four players played for Bobby Cox in their Braves career, who is the all-time leader in ejections for a manager as Smoltz alluded to. So perhaps it was only right for Snitker to do his best Cox impression with these four legends of the organization calling the game.
