“Everything you could possibly see in a road, we hit it,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said. And yet.
An October tradition that arrives without fail with every World Series is discussion of resilience and perseverance and how the teams that made it had overcome all manner of season-threatening menaces along the way. Fair enough. But even the “no one believed in us” teams of the past would tip their caps to this year’s Atlanta Braves, who rode a rocky path to the World Series, which is scheduled to begin Tuesday night in Houston. “We have had like 40-foot potholes that we’ve hit, like humongous speed bumps,” Freddie Freeman, the Atlanta first baseman, said over the weekend. “Everything you could possibly see in a road, we hit it.” Let’s consult the trip history. April 1 The season begins in Philadelphia. Atlanta, which reached the National League Championship Series in 2020, is favored to win the N.L. East. Max Fried, the Atlanta starter, pitches five innings and strikes out eight; he gives up just two runs. Atlanta, though, struggles to score and loses in the 10th inning when Jean Segura hits a walk-off single. April 2 Atlanta is getting ready to host its first All-Star Game since 2000, but Major League Baseball is under intense pressure to move the game after Georgia passes a law making it harder to vote in urban areas. Commissioner Rob Manfred agrees with the public sentiment and yanks the exhibition from Truist Park, sparking a baseball-focused political uproar that continues to this day. The Braves say pointedly that the move was “neither our decision nor our recommendation.” April 7 After the disappointment on opening day, Atlanta lost again. And again. And again. Deliverance comes on a Wednesday, when Atlanta plays a doubleheader in Washington. The visitors stitch together a win,7-6, in the first game for their inaugural victory. They win the second game,2-0. In less than six hours, Atlanta goes from 0-4 to 2-4. May 29 Atlanta is 24-25 and not long removed from a four-game winning streak. Outfielder Marcell Ozuna, who won a Silver Slugger Award in 2020, is batting.213 but is a regular in the lineup after signing a four-year, $65 million deal. A fresh addition to the injured list, Ozuna is in Georgia while his team is on a road trip when he is accused of domestic violence. Although he later enters a pretrial diversion program that can lead to the dismissal of his court case, his arrest thrusts his career into turmoil while M.L.B. conducts its own inquiry.
