For Heyward, that point was reinforced Tuesday when the Atlanta Braves, his childhood team for whom he played for five seasons, fired manager Fredi Gonzalez while in the midst of a bad season and rebuilding program. They have lost two straight and eight of 10, have baseball’s worst record at 9-28 and already are 13 1/2 games out of first place in the NL East. Their 9-28 record is the worst in the league.
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Fredi Gonzalez knew Monday night he was going to be fired as manager of the Atlanta Braves. Snitker was Atlanta’s third-base coach from 2006 to 2013, also following Gonzalez in that role when Gonzalez was named manager of the Marlins. We went through a lot together here.
The Braves announced the firing of manager Fredi Gonzalez on Tuesday, but he figured out Monday night what the team was planning to do when he received an unexpected email.
How bad did things get?
“I think I’ll be OK”.
The Braves are now on the road and will play the next six games away from Atlanta.
Along with Gonzalez, the Braves also fired bench coach Carlos Tosca, who presumably did a poor job bench coaching. He was replaced by bullpen coach Eddie Perez at first base, and Marty Reed, the Gwinnett pitching coach, will take over in the bullpen.
The Braves now have a 9-28 record and are 12 games behind the first place Nationals in the National League East. After his minor-league playing career ended, he first became a professional manager in 1982 for Anderson in the South Atlantic League – hired by the legendary Hank Aaron, then the Braves’ director of player development. Freddie Freeman is the only player who started for the Braves on Opening Day in 2011 who is still with the team.
Gonzalez, 52, went 434-413 in five-plus seasons with Atlanta.
Snitker has been in the organization for 40 years. That losing series will be remembered for Gonzalez not using closer Craig Kimbrel in game four, as David Carpenter instead pitched to Juan Uribe, who hit a game-winning home run to end the series.
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But again, this is a cruel business and its part of our job..
