Photo: Tim Nwachukwu
Doug Gottlieb: "It's not Jake Mintz's fault that the Atlanta Braves choked. You know who's fault it is? It's the Atlanta Braves' fault. The reason the Atlanta Braves lost the series was the Philadelphia Phillies were better than them when it mattered. That's it. In 4 games, they were better in 3 of them. Let's stop with the trash talk stuff. It wasn't really trash talk. If it did motivate him, fine. If Atlanta, you don't like it, throw it in his earhole. Or maybe, better yet, don't throw him gopher balls where they can go and round the bases and do backflips and point to their kids. Trash talk has never won a single game. It has never lost a single game. What it only does is, when you talk it but you can't walk it, like Jerry Jeudy did last night, it makes you look like an idiot. That's it."
Doug Gottlieb reacts to the locker room controversy that became a point of contention within sports media as the Phillies eliminated the top-seeded Braves in the NLDS. Doug explains why it is ridiculous to say that Bryce Harper's apparent motivation to get back at the Braves somehow changed the true result of the series, where the Phillies steadily dominated the Braves and Harper's gigantic home runs were more a result of his raw power facing poorly-placed pitches.