One season after the Braves lost to the Dodgers in a seven-game National League Championship Series, Atlanta knocked off the defending champions in six. The loss ends the title defense of the Dodgers, who won the World Series after last year's pandemic-shortened season.
Instead, it's the 88-win Braves who take the NL pennant during a season in which they did not climb over the .500 mark until Aug. 6. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, that's the latest first-day-over-.500 date ever for a team that reached the World Series. The previous record was Aug. 3, held by another version of the franchise -- the 1914 Boston Braves, known to history as the "Miracle Braves."
The pennant is the latest step for a franchise that began a long rebuild during the middle part of the past decade and reemerged as a contender in 2018. This season marked the Braves' fourth straight playoff appearance. Saturday's win snapped a string of 12 straight postseasons for the franchise without a World Series appearance, tied with the Oakland Athletics for the longest streak of that kind.
With the win, Braves franchise stalwart Freddie Freeman earns his first trip to the Fall Classic. Selected by the Braves in the second round of the 2007 draft, Freeman was the one player the Braves kept when they methodically dismantled their last contending club, signing him to an eight-year extension in 2014.
"I think this might be the definition of pure joy," Freeman said. "It really is. I really don't, it hasn't hit me at all. I don't really know how to feel."
The win was also the cherry on the top of the long career of Braves manager, Brian Snitker, a Braves lifer who has been with the organization since 1977. Snitker, who turned 66 during the series, played for the franchise in the minors then worked as a roving instructor after being hired to remain with the organization by Hall of Famer Hank Aaron. He managed in the minors for years before coaching in the majors.
Now Snitker is at the pinnacle of his profession with the only organization he has known.
The Braves will meet the Houston Astros in the World Series, with the opener slated for Tuesday night at Minute Maid Park in Houston.
