Braves break the Georgia sports curse

By Preston Hall | Sports writer

The Atlanta Braves shocked the world and seemingly broke the Georgia sports curse by winning the World Series four games to two over the Houston Astros last week.

This just finished season might beat the strangest year for the Braves to win it all; this team had massive ups and downs. Atlanta struggled to be on top of their division, the NL East, for most of the regular season. The Braves struggled to be above .500 for more than the first half of the season. This team had a key injury to arguably one of the best players in the MLB in Ronald Acuna Jr. 

General Manager Alex Anthopoulos was one of the few people in baseball who thought this team was special and had faith the Braves could make a run and make the postseason. 

On July 10, 2021, the Braves were playing a road game at the Miami Marlins. In this game a routine play in the outfield saw many Braves fans cringe as star outfielder Acuna went down and was in noticeable pain. It was later discovered that he had completely torn his ACL in his right knee. 

Only five days later most people believing that by July 30 the Braves would be sellers at the trade deadline were shocked when Anthopoulos traded for outfielder Joc Pederson of the Chicago Cubs. Many people and experts believed that this move was going to be a quick flip for a prospect or two to fill their double-A and triple-A affiliate teams. 

I also believed that this was the case if the team couldn’t turn it on and win some games and close the gap between themselves and the division-leading New York Mets. 

With the trade deadline looming, the Braves were able to play a little better, and on July 30, Anthopoulos made the moves that could very well be among the best deadline dealing in MLB history as he was able to pick up three more outfielders in Jorge Soler from Kansas City, Adam Duvall from the Miami Marlins and Eddie Rosario from the Cleveland Guardians.

Something else to ponder is that these moves never broke the bank, and in fact they were more of a salary dump than anything else. 

Rosario was the craziest of all the players the Braves traded for. At the time he was dealing with an abdominal strain and had been on the injured list since July 5. He wasn’t even able to play for the Braves right away, so he was more of a hope than a guarantee for Atlanta.

After all was done, the Braves put together the best second-half performance of any team in the MLB as they went 44-22. This run the Braves were able to put together took them from third in their division to first, ahead of the Philadelphia Phillies and the Mets. Atlanta would finish the regular season with a final record of 88-73, 15 games above .500 with a winning percentage of .547 and a run differential of +134. 

Finally taking advantage of a weak division and guaranteeing a spot in the postseason, the Braves were the three seed, only one spot better than the second-best team record-wise in the Los Angeles Dodgers, who hadn’t won their division but did win the wildcard play-in game over the St. Louis Cardinals. The Braves were matched up with the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLDS round and won the series 3-1 and clinched their spot in the NLCS versus the Dodgers on a go-ahead home run off the bat of star first baseman Freddie Freeman. 

As improbable as this series win was, it was nothing in comparison the series win versus the Dodgers. The Braves proved much for the defending World Series champions. Rosario and the other trade deadline players mixed well with the already strong core of Braves, especially in the infield.

In the NLDS, Pederson was huge as he hit timely home runs and had big RBI’s. In the NLCS versus the Dodgers, the MVP was Rosario, whose Game Two walk-off single put the Braves up two games to none. The Braves went on to clinch the series in six games against the Dodgers and advanced to their first World Series since 1999. The opponent would be the Astros, who beat the Boston Red Sox in the ALCS.

Game One was also the first game back for Soler as he missed the last game of the Brewers series and all the Dodgers series with COVID-19. Soler would end up being the World Series MVP as he came up time and time again with huge hits and multiple game-changing home runs. 

The Braves’ bullpen yet again flexed their muscles as they would help the starter shut out the Astros twice, the first time was in Game Three as the Braves won 2-0 and the final shut out was in the series clinching sixth game as the Braves finished off the Astros 7-0 on the back of Max Fried and his strong six-inning performance. 

The Braves winning the World Series was as improbable. This team was not supposed to win anything in the playoffs, let alone winning it all. This just shows that the baseball season is long and in the playoffs all you need is momentum. 

The Braves are finally world champions. A team from Georgia outside of the MLS team Atlanta Utd. has won a championship, something the state has wanted desperately for so long time. 

And it all happened the year we lost No. 44, Hank Aaron, the greatest player in the franchise’s history. If only he could have been here to witness it, as his indomitable spirit seemed to preside over Atlanta in this unlikely championship season.

With Hank’s spirit, the curse never had a chance.

 Contact Preston Hall at prhall@augusta.edu.