Ian Anderson was dealing Friday night for the Braves in Game 3 of the World Series against the Astros.
The Atlanta pitcher tossed five scoreless, hitless innings against Houston before Braves manager Brian Snitker removed Anderson from the game.
It’s not uncommon to see managers pull pitchers from games despite having a strong outing. After all, even during the regular season starting pitchers’ outings were shorter than normal.
Snitker was asked after the game if this was the plan all along.
“The no-hitter thing, he wasn’t going to pitch a nine-inning no-hitter,” he told reporters, as transcribed by ASAP Sports. “… I told Ian, I said, Ian, I’ll be honest with you. One of the things was he was throwing a lot of pitches in the top half of that lineup, getting ready to go back out when he did.
“I thought the fourth inning he really had to work to get through that. He had a really good fifth inning. And then I told him because he was like, ‘are you sure? Are you sure?’ But I was just like, ‘Ian, I’m going with my gut right here. Just my eyes, my gut.’
“It would have been real easy to let him go out. I don’t know, something just — our guys were rested that we like, and I just thought at some point those guys had saw, I think, Altuve — their first three hitters saw multiple — had 12, 9 — I think 12 pitches that they saw off him. I was like he’s getting out of trouble, and he’s making pitches. You look up there — and he was making pitches when he had to. That’s what I said earlier today. The kid never stops pitching. He never stops trying to make pitches.
“I don’t know. It could have backfired, I guess. I just thought at that point in time, in a game of this magnitude and all, that he had done his job. And we had a bullpen that all the guys we use had two days off, and they were only going to pitch an inning apiece, and that made them available for the next two games after if it went south.”
After all was said and done, the Braves took a 2-1 World Series lead and now have the chance to push the Astros to the brink of elimination in Game 4 on Saturday at 8:09 p.m. ET.
