Just when the Atlanta Braves perhaps needed it most, they were handed a weekend series against the struggling Washington Nationals, a real chance for Brian Snitker’s team to make up ground in the race for the National League wild card. On Friday night, they did just that — but they didn’t make it easy.

That’s unfortunately been a theme for the Braves this season, as they’ve struggled with both a devastating injury epidemic and their own mistakes all season long. On Friday, we saw just that when Jorge Soler, reunited with Atlanta at the trade deadline, returned from a hamstring injury to play right field despite having been almost exclusively the DH in his two stops this season.

That set the stage, and it was the fourth inning when Chris Sale dropped a fly ball into right field that drifted toward the free throw line. Soler ran for it but appeared to stop just short of the line. It was a huge fumble, as the ball landed fair and then bounced into the stands for a ground-rule double. Sale had runners on second and third base, two outs, and Atlanta only had a 1-0 lead. The Nats took the lead with a two-RBI double in the next at-bat.

Soler was clearly upset with himself and even apologized to Sale after the game. There’s honestly no real problem with that. However, Snitker’s reaction to the game may be problematic when asked about it on Saturday before the second game of the series.

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Snitker was asked why Soler was short on the run for the fly ball and what happened on the play. Instead of saying the veteran took responsibility for a mistake (which we saw him do!), he apologized and said Soler wasn’t hurt, but stopped because he thought the ball was going to be a foul.

You can correct me if I’m wrong here, but a catch in foul territory would still have been the third out to end the inning, right? So even if he thought it was going to be a foul, he still should have reached for it full steam ahead to make the play.

In the end, it didn’t doom the Braves, as they tied the game on a walk-off error in the seventh inning and won in overtime. However, one could argue that if Soler had gone so fast on that play, they never should have been in that position. But Sntiker is looking for excuses for a play that is, frankly, inexcusable. No, he shouldn’t be lambasting Soler or any of his players, but there is something to be said for taking responsibility, especially publicly. That was definitely not the case here.

There are some excuses the Braves absolutely have right now. They don’t have Spencer Strider. They don’t have Ronald Acuña Jr. They don’t have Austin Riley. They don’t have AJ Minter. Everyone knows that’s a tough task for Atlanta. What they also don’t need are excuses for avoidable mistakes and bad decisions like the ones we saw with Soler.

Soler was out of the lineup on Saturday due to a scheduled rest day after returning from injury, and the Braves finished the day with a win. That’s good, but if this team wants to secure its playoff spot, Snitker and the rest of the team can’t keep making excuses when accountability should be the more important ingredient to getting the job done.