Braves Offseason 2012: Frank Wren feeling 'emptiness' after loss

After a heart-breaking 6-3 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Wild Card Game Friday, Atlanta Braves general manager Frank Wren said he felt "emptiness" after his team departed the postseason one-and-done.

"Probably a one-word description is emptiness. I think we've talked all season long that we had a real good team and had a chance to take it into the postseason and do well. How well? You never know. That you understand that's kind of the laws of baseball. But we had a chance to do well. ... We had played well in September and felt like we had the right guy on the mound. We had everything going in our direction. And then you don't make the plays defensively in postseason, it'll bite you. And that's what beat us."

The Braves received a strong start from Kris Medlen (6⅓ innings, two earned runs, three hits, no walks), but it wasn't enough to overcome three errors and four unearned runs.

A throwing error by Chipper Jones in the fourth inning led to two unearned runs, while errors from both Dan Uggla and Andrelton Simmons in the seventh inning lifted the Cardinals to a 6-2 lead.

The most memorable moment came in the eighth inning, when Simmons towered a pop-up into left field. It was ruled an infield fly, but the ball dropped on the outfield grass 225 feet from home plate. It would have loaded the bases, but instead cost the Braves an out.

Wren said the infield fly rule comes down to an umpire's judgement, but "that's not the reason we lost the ballgame. We lost the ballgame because we didn't make routine plays."