Braves Season Ends in Series Loss to Dodgers

There will be no repeat of 2021.

It was merely five years ago that the Braves shocked the Dodgers in the NLCS en route to copping their first World Series trophy since 1995. But the perennial National League heavyweights now sport vastly different rosters as Los Angeles took care of Atlanta in four NLDS games earlier this month, further solidifying itself as the team of the 2020s — a title that Atlanta once seemed destined to attain.

The Braves, having weathered a litany of killer injuries since spring training, rode a solid 94-win regular season into October. They weren’t necessarily flashy but behind first-year skipper Walt Weiss, boasted a club with sound fundamentals (an often untouchable bullpen, elite glovework all over the diamond) that flashed potential to play until Halloween. And after getting past the Phillies in the Wild Card round — their devilish NL East rivals that prevailed in 2022 and ’23 postseason matchups — the Braves loomed as a worthy opponent for the gluttonous Dodgers. Though the Braves made things interesting with a gutsy 3-2 Game 2 win to square things up before heading home, a star-studded, aging L.A. team — one with a $433 million payroll — won Games 3 and 4 at Truist Park by an aggregate 7-2 margin.

“It’s a privilege to manage these guys. The things that we overcame this year are pretty amazing,” Weiss told reporters as the visiting Dodgers were holding a subdued celebration minutes after their 4-1 Game 4 clincher. “You go all the way back to the end of Spring Training and all the losses we suffered in Spring Training. I don’t think anyone had us higher than third in the division. A lot of people had us fourth at that point when we had all those losses.”

Indeed, Atlanta was able to overcome devastating injuries to the pitching staff (Spencer Strider, Spencer Schwellenbach) and less severe ones to positional players (Ronald Acuna, Jr., Sean Murphy, Drake Baldwin) to win 18 more games than the previous summer. But against the dynastic Dodgers, Atlanta couldn’t overcome a lineup that, aside from Michael Harris II, was simply overwhelmed by the Dodgers’ stacked pitching staff. Ultimately, a ballclub that launched balls over the fence all season accounted for merely two homers while the team’s collective batting average at series end was .145.

Middle-of-the-order All-Stars Baldwin, Ozzie Albies, and Matt Olson had very quiet series, while Acuna Jr. failed to spark the lineup at the top of the order. The latter’s lingering struggles comprised one of the core storylines of the series.

“We just need Ronald to be Ronald. I’ll be honest, 50 percent of him is better than most,” likely future Hall of Famer pitcher Chris Sale told the media on the eve of NLDS Game 3. “I think going back home might alleviate a little bit of that pressure, being in front of our home fans, and just staying loose. Again, I think you get into these situations, and sometimes you try to do more.

“I think we have all the confidence in the world, not only in him, but up and down our lineup and our roster. It obviously hasn’t come yet, but it’s coming soon. Again, we all have confidence in him to go out there. He can change a game with one swing of the bat, and that’s really all it takes this time of the year.

“You don’t have to hit .400 in the postseason to be a hero. Sometimes, it’s just one game or it’s one swing or it’s one play. I feel like that’s brewing for him.”

Alas, there was no such pivotal moment for Acuna and the rest of the Braves.

While Sale came out blazing in Game 3 by whiffing the first six batters, he did serve up a decisive 2-run homer to utility man Kike Hernandez in the bottom of the fourth. Old friend Freddie Freeman tacked on a solo shot off Sale a couple batters later while the Braves only scratched out five hits in dropping the deflating 3-1 decision.

Despite the series outcome, there were some inspiring individual performances. Harris II, who was in the stands at Truist during the 2021 NLCS, had a phenomenal postseason, bashing a tone-setting 3-run homer in the Game 3 Wild Card round win against the Phils and essentially taking over Game 2 of the NLDS in L.A. while Ray Kerr, whose MLB journey was at one time sidetracked with jobs a 7-Eleven and movie theaters, didn’t yield a single run in his two brief outings on the hill.

And there was a notable Jewish presence in the Braves’ postseason run as journeyman DH Rowdy Tellez cracked Weiss’s postseason roster as a pinch-hitter. Though Tellez’s contributions were truthfully minimal, the one-time imposing slugger for the Brewers did draw a pair of walks in the Dodgers series and provided some colorful sound bites when he addressed the media leading up to Game 3.

“Yeah, I mean, didn’t have anything going until the last day of Spring Training. Signed with the Braves and spent the majority of the time in Gwinnett [and] just a little bit up here,” explained Tellez. “And coming to now, they kind of told me just to be ready for the postseason. So, I stayed back and stayed at camp there in Gwinnett. When my time was called, I was able to be here and help out the team and try to make the guys laugh and grab sunflower seeds when people need them.”

“I kind of knew my role coming into this, what they expected of me, what they wanted from me. So, I think the idea was to be a pinch-hit guy. I’m comfortable with it. It doesn’t bother me.”

The Braves’ 2026 season may have expired quietly on the evening of Oct. 7 in front of the Truist faithful, but the campaign wasn’t a total lost cause as the locals, just a week earlier, were finally able to exorcise their postseason demons against their divisional rivals up the Eastern Seaboard, in front of a standing room-only, jazzed up home crowd no less.

“Definitely feels amazing to win against the Phillies because they were the ones that sent us home previous years, and especially at home,” said Albies after his club’s 6-2 win in the winner-take-all Wild Card game. “The fans were electric tonight. I’ve got to give the fans a shout out for sure.”