Historic Braves Sweep the Marlins in the NLDS

Travis d'Arnaud rips a high fastball for a double into the gap, driving in two runs in Game Three.  The Braves are playing incredible postseason baseball right now.

I did not know what to expect going into the National League Division Series between the Atlanta Braves and the Miami Marlins.  The Braves were the better team, I felt, but the Marlins had never lost a postseason series.  Miami has been the Wild Card winner twice and gone on to win the World Series both times (1997 and 2003).  

It was time for that to change, but could the Braves bats stay hot and their pitching remain as solid as it was closing out the season?

Game One started off well enough.  Ronald Acuna, Jr. became the youngest player in baseball history to hit a lead-off home run in the postseason with a monster blast.  But after a great first inning, Max Fried did not look sharp and was pulled after 70 pitches...and giving up 4 runs.  Not a good start at all for the young Braves southpaw.  But, the fact he only threw 70 pitches meant that he should be rested for his next start.  

After giving up the homer to Acuna, Marlins starter Sandy Alcantara proceeded to hit the young Braves lead-off star with a pitch during his next at bat.  That seemed to fire the Braves up.  Acuna and the Marlins have a "history", as they say, of this sort of thing.  Acuna usually murders Marlins pitching and Miami seems to be frustrated by this. 

As they have all season, the Braves bullpen pretty much stopped the Marlins after Fried's early exit and the Braves bats came alive once again late and trailing in a game.  Travis d'Arnaud supplied the big hit in a six-run 7th inning with a 3-run homer.  The Braves won Game One 9-5.  

Shaky starting pitching, solid bullpen relief, power hitting late in the game.  That was Game One - and the entire Braves season - in a nutshell.  The good news was that we did all that damage against the best Marlins starter (Alcantara) and their best reliever (Yimi Garcia), a good sign that our bats might take charge in this series.

Before the next game there was some virtual jawing between Alcantara and Acuna with the Marlins pitcher saying he was "ready to fight" Acuna if that's what he wanted.  For his part, Acuna took to social media (once again showing how this technology just makes everybody dumber) and taunted the Marlins.  So we had some bad blood already brewing going into Game Two.

The Marlins' pitching strategy for the game was not to throw balls at Acuna.  It was to strike him out.  Which he did in all four plate appearances.  "They can't get me out" should learn to hold his tongue and play baseball.  2020 MVP leading candidate Freddie Freeman did not get a hit and had no hits thus far in the series.  Marcell Ozuna struck out once and otherwise did nothing.

If I knew all that would happen before Game Two started I would have thought that the Braves didn't stand a chance.  But I would be wrong.  The Braves offense was anemic and only managed four hits with no walks and a way too high 10 strikeouts.  

But d'Arnaud and Dansby Swanson connected for solo homers and the Braves bullpen was rock solid for a close 2-0 win. Ian Anderson gave us the strong start we needed with 8 K's in 5 2/3 innings before turning the game over to sidewinder Darren O'Day, lefty Tyler Matzek, dominant Will Smith, and closer Mark Melancon to finish off Miami.  Anderson got his second postseason win and joined former Brave Steve Avery (my daughter's namesake) as the youngest pitcher in baseball to throw back-to-back shutout wins (5+ innings) and record at least eight strikeouts in each outing.  Outstanding!

Nevertheless, the lack of hitting was worrisome, especially Freeman's ongoing hitless streak.  I felt great about being up in the series two games to none but I would feel better if our main batters were contributing more.  d'Arnaud was hot but could he carry the whole team?  Yes, but not for long.  It's still a long way to the World Series.

So I had a little apprehension going into Game Three.  Kyle Wright would start for the Braves and he had basically sucked most of the season (5.21 ERA).  But Wright had gotten his act together and made a couple of decent starts at the end of September.  Except for Fried, every Braves designated starting pitcher for opening day was either injured or sent down for lack of performance. Wright was the best Brian Snitker had at the moment.

Kyle Wright's wicked slider gets his seventh strikeout in NLDS Game Three.

Wright was terrific.  He pitched in and out of trouble early on but ended with 6 solid shut-out innings and 7 K's. Snitker sent out members of the bullpen that had seen little work so far.  A.J. Minter  (0.86 ERA), Jacob Webb, and Shane Greene all shined to complete the historic shutout.  The Braves won 7-0.  The Braves swept their second postseason series of 2020.

Suddenly, at precisely the right time of year, the Braves pitching is unhittable.  They are only the third team in history to pitch four postseason shutouts in five games.  49 innings pitched and opponents only scored in three of them.  That is historic pitching, as in nothing like this has happened since 1905 and Christy Mathewson was on the mound.  

Yeah.  

There is nothing I enjoy more about baseball than watching a quality young pitcher hone his craft.  Now I get the pleasure of watching Fried, Anderson, and Wright try to take us to the World Series.  It reminds me of watching Avery and Tom Glavine and John Smoltz in the 1990's.  Only the Braves pitching staff today is collectively pitching better than they did in 1990-whatever.  Way better. 

Despite winning 7-0, the Braves bats were still a little frustrating .  Adam Duvall and Austin Riley are both striking out way too much.  Freeman is struggling at the plate right now.  But everyone else has been solid contributors.  This Braves lineup is something to be feared.  You can not pitch around anybody and even Duvall and Riley can drive the ball into the gaps or out of the park.

I am so lucky to be alive and experience this.  I have been a fan of the Atlanta Braves all my life and, as of right now, this team is playing the best baseball I have ever seen them play.  The offense has been powerful all season but we only had one decent starting pitcher back in August. 

In October, these starters and bullpen, are phenomenal.  They are overwhelming.  If anyone gets into trouble there are a bunch of quality arms that can come in and shut down the situation.  We are pitching shutouts.  Shutouts.  Shutouts.  There is no more powerful weapon in the postseason than a shutout.  It makes 1 run a solid lead.  There's no greater feeling of confidence than that.

The Braves will now play the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS.  At an astonishing 43-17 (compared with the Braves 35-25) the Dodgers were the best team in all of baseball in 2020.  They swept the San Diego Padres in their NLDS.  Atlanta has not faced anyone of their caliber all season.  They are a juggernaut.  The Braves and the Dodgers both have momentum going into the Championship Series, which should make for some exciting baseball.

LA is an old nemesis from back in the early 1990's when Atlanta was in the "western" division for some bizarre reason.  We played the Dodgers a lot back then.  Between 1970 and 1990, we managed to beat them for a division title only once, in 1982.  So when we bested them in 1991, beginning a historic run of 14-straight division championships, it felt sooo sweet.  We were tasting postseason victory for the first time.  Now we're four wins away from the World Series but that's still a long way when you consider who we have to beat.

Still, there has never been a team pitch in the postseason like the 2020 Atlanta Braves.  If that holds up they should be unstoppable. 

After all these years it has come back to this.  Everyone was waving these and chanting it back in 1991 when the Braves winning felt new.  We had to beat LA to win the division and go to the play-offs.  There was no wildcard series back then.  Just the Championship Series and the World Series.  So beating the historically dominant Dodgers was a huge step forward for the Braves back then.  And it will be this time too.  Beat L.A.! Beat L.A.!  Beat L.A.!  I've carried this around in my binocular case for 29 years!