Lang’s World: The Atlanta Braves and the “It” Season.
Lang WhitakerOne week after the Fourth of July, the Atlanta Braves’ season was effectively over.
The Braves were in Miami at the time, playing a series against the Marlins, who under manager Don Mattingly have repeatedly tried to injure Braves outfielder Ronald Acuña by throwing pitches directly at him. (Since 2018, the Marlins have hit Acuña with pitches seven times, not including a few near misses.) The Marlins trying to injure Acuña makes a certain perverse sense, because Acuña is the most dynamic player on the Braves, and at 23 years old, arguably the best young player in baseball.
In a game on July 2, the Marlins wasted no time getting to the point, throwing the very first pitch of the game into Acuña’s shoulder. But that wasn’t what did it. Nine days later, Marlins shortstop Jazz Chisholm lined a drive into right field, and after a leaping stab at the ball, Acuña landed awkwardly and crumpled to the ground. At the time, 82 games into his season, Acuña had slugged 24 home runs, driven in 52 runs, stolen 17 bases, and had just been named a starter in the All-Star Game after leading the fan vote.
Acuña was, by all measures, the best player on a Braves team that was scuffling—they were 44-44 when Acuña went down. When Acuña got hurt, it definitely felt like the Braves were dunzo. We already had a few injuries to pitchers, outfielder Marcell Ozuna had been removed following a domestic violence arrest, and at that time, the Braves just didn’t have “it.”
Now, I can not tell you what “it” is. Either a team has “it,” or they don’t. What is “it?” If that was easy to answer, most baseball GM’s would be out of work. It’s momentum, it’s purpose, it’s a drive, it’s a central unifying theme, it’s something that everyone can believe in and rally around. For most of this season, the Braves seemed like they were just going through the motions. They didn’t have “it.”
And then at the trade deadline, the Braves used a bunch of lower level prospects to completely reboot their outfield, picking up Joc Pederson, Eddie Rosario, Adam Duvall and Jorge Soler. This was particularly baffling to me. We were a team that had been struggling to find quality pitching all season, particularly out of the bullpen. But now we were going all in on offense?
The crazy thing is, it worked. The Braves started hitting, and getting offense from all angles, and driving in runs. Suddenly the pitching wasn’t as critical. On August 7, the Braves were even at 56-56, almost three games out of first place in the NL East. Suddenly, everything changed. The Braves got hot at the right time and started winning, and the Braves finished the season by going 32-17. The Braves made the postseason, and basically skunked the Milwaukee Brewers, then outplayed the mighty Dodgers, and now find themselves in the dang World Series, starting this week.
Two other late-season developments warrant mentioning here. At some point, reserve outfielder Guillermo Heredia purchased two toy swords and began wielding them in the dugout after big hits. This became a thing, and now every Braves player who gets a hit mimics a sword swiping motion after getting on base. More recently, Pederson inexplicably began wearing a single strand of pearls while playing. When asked about it, according to Braves beat writer Dave O’Brien, Pederson said there was no real explanation, he was just a “bad b*tch.” And now, of course, everyone in the stands at Braves games wears pearls.
It’s hard to assign an identity to this Braves team. Those ‘90s Braves teams were defined by elite pitching and great defense. This year’s model is a bit more well-rounded, able to do a little bit of everything. They could probably be a bit better at playing station to station, relying a bit less on the long ball. And Will Smith still gives me heart palpitations every time he trots in for a save opportunity. But more often than not, this team finds ways to win. These Braves have “it.”
To win a title, the Braves will have to defeat the Houston Astros, who established their legacy as perhaps the most successful cheaters in sports history when they employed an elaborate sign-stealing scheme involving banging trash cans to help them win the 2017 World Series. When their scheme was revealed, Major League Baseball responded by not taking away their World Series win and also not punishing any of the players involved. This was an unpopular stance, both in and out of baseball.
The Astros may or may not have progressed from trash cans to using buzzers under their uniforms, as this video of Jose Altuve seems to suggest, as he begs his teammates to not tear off his jersey…
The Astros say this theory is preposterous. Of course they do. Cheating allegations have followed the team ever since, even into last week in the ALCS. To their credit, I suppose, the Astros players have leaned into the hate, embracing being the villains. This is probably a good thing, since pretty much every neutral fan doesn’t like them now. The Astros are a great team, one with a fatal flaw.
For me, more than anything, this has been an exceptionally fun ride. It’s been a while since I had a team in my life that made a championship run. I grew up in Atlanta, and the Braves were so good for so long—winning 15 division titles in a row and getting to the World Series five times—that everyone sort of became habituated to the idea of postseason baseball. But the last World Series the Braves played in was in 1999, and it feels like enough time has passed that fans no longer expect a postseason run year after year.
I know that I didn’t expect this. I knew the Braves were good, probably good enough to win the NL East. But after everything they went through, and all the great players lost along the way, I definitely did not expect the Braves to be one of the last two teams left in the chase for a World Championship.
I don’t know if the Braves are good enough to win the World Series, but this team has spent the entire season surpassing expectations. These Braves have “it.” Hopefully we have “it” for four more wins.
Can they win it all? I have no idea.
But man, has this been one helluva ride.
Published on Oct 25, 2021
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