What a time to finally come alive
All good and hilarious things must come to an end and that was the case for the this recent extended winning streak that the Atlanta Braves went on. This is probably the funniest possible timing for a long winning streak, especially when you consider that it wasn’t too long ago that the Braves had confirmed their first losing season in a number of years and seemed to be a lock for 90 losses.
Instead, they’re likely going to end the season as simply “mediocre” instead of “bad” and on top of all of that, the team has actually had a very good record since August 9 — 26-17 to be precise, after this series against the Nationals. That type of form for most of this season would’ve had the Braves sitting pretty in the Postseason race. Instead, they’ll be left to wonder “what if” and “where has this been,” as they looked to continue their inexplicable wining streak during this series against the Nationals.
Monday, September 22
Braves 11, Nationals 5
If you were expecting a pitchers’ duel between Chris Sale and MacKenzie Gore, you ended up being sorely mistaken as both pitchers ended up getting lit up a bit in this one. Gore’s ankle was bothering him which contributed to the four runs that he gave up in just two innings of work. Meanwhile, Sale gave up five runs in a start for the first time since April 8, which is when he got charged for five runs against the Phillies. It was a far cry from the absolute dominance on display from Sale just six days earlier and usually this could’ve resulted in a tough night for the Braves as a whole.
Instead, the Braves just continued to light up most of the guys who the Nationals sent out there. This included a big five-run inning in the third — it started with Gore on the mound but it ended with Jackson Rutledge getting ransacked and Miguel Cairo hitting the showers early after he got ejected for losing his patience with check swing calls. Atlanta was up 7-1 once the smoke cleared in that frame. While the Nationals did make it an 8-5 game eventually, Atlanta responded with three in the sixth inning in order to give themselves some breathing room on their way to yet another win on this shocking ride.
Tuesday, September 23
Braves 3, Nationals 2
The longball was the name of the game in this one, as three solo home runs ended up pushing the Braves to a perfect ten-straight wins. The Nationals went up early in this one with an RBI single in the third from Atlanta metro area-native CJ Abrams but that was their mistake, I guess: This game was about dingers and the Braves hit more of ‘em than the Nationals did. Ronald Acuña Jr. hit the go-ahead homer in the sixth inning for his 20th of the season but Michael Harris II sandwiched Acuña’s homer with two of his own in the fifth and the seventh, respectively. The two deposits from Money Mike ended up being huge in this one.
James Wood crushed one in the eighth inning to bring it to the one-run deficit but Atlanta’s pitching staff was up to the task of keeping the Nats quiet in this one. Hurston Waldrep went six innings and only gave up a single run, while Dylan Lee was responsible for the homer that Wood hit in the eighth. Outside of that, this was a solid and confident performance from Atlanta’s pitching staff as they were able to push the winning streak to double-digits.
Wednesday, September 24
Nationals 4, Braves 3
Now, how else could this winning streak end but with a one-run loss? We needed a reminder that this is still 2025 and what “better” way to do that than seeing this team suffer their 35th defeat by one run this season? Bryce Elder got the ball for this one and he left the game with Atlanta down 3-1. Two of those pitchers came on the long ball — I will give you one wild guess as to where both of those pitches to Josh Bell and James Wood were located before they both sent them to the moon.
Anyways, the Nationals held a 4-1 lead in this one before Atlanta’s lineup actually came back to life in the latter stages against Jackson Rutledge and Jose Ferrer. Marcell Ozuna cracked one out in the eighth inning and then Eli White made it a one-run deficit in the ninth inning with his 10th homer of the season. The game ended in hilarious fashion after the infamous CB Bucknor missed two calls at first base that both had to be corrected via replay — Ronald Acuña Jr. made it on with an infield single that extended the game but Drake Baldwin wasn’t as fortunate as his ground-out ended the game. Both calls were pretty obvious but Bucknor missed them both. I’m really going to enjoy having ABS around when he’s behind the plate.
I’m not going to sit here and say that the Braves winning 10 games in a row is a bad thing. Yeah, it’s pretty lame that they waited until the season was well and truly cooked beyond all belief before going on a run like this but hey, it’s just nice to see this team looking good for once after having spent most of the season in a miserable rut. Plus, while the Braves may not have had an actual impact on any race in the National League, they can at least take heart in the fact that they did manage to play a pretty big part in spoiling Detroit’s season, so they accomplished the goal of any also-ran team at this point in the season.
Fortunately, Atlanta’s winning streak hasn’t exactly cratered their Lottery odds, either. That’s due to the fact that the Marlins have been playing at a similarly-high level lately and the team that used to play in Oakland has also been on a very good run as of late as well. Those two teams have essentially kept the Braves alive but it’s now a certainty that the best the Braves can do when heading into the final series of the season will be to finish with the fourth-best Lottery odds in hand. That’ll be a tall task for them considering that the Pittsburgh Pirates are coming to town and they basically have the second-best odds on lock at this point.
You’d be hard-pressed to predict a series loss for the Braves to the Buccos at this point but hey, school has been out in the baseball world for the past two weeks with all of the craziness that’s been going on lately. We’ll see what happens but for now, it’s okay to enjoy this good run that the Braves are on! It’s nice to have something to cheer for!
Category: General Sports
