The Braves walked into October with one giant question hanging over everything: was the pitching good enough to carry them like a championship team? For most of the season, the answer looked shaky. Then the rotation started disappearing.
Spencer Schwellenbach and Hurston Waldrep were basically lost for the year in Spring Training. Spencer Strider got hurt around the same time, returned late, never quite looked right and was eventually shut down too.
Reynaldo Lopez never gave Atlanta much before injuries and poor performance caught up to him. What the Braves thought would be a full rotation turned into Chris Sale and a prayer.
And somehow, that staff still held up. Not just in the regular season, either.
In October, Atlanta kept the Phillies to 10 runs over three games and limited the Dodgers’ All-Star lineup to 13 over four. That usually buys you enough offense to keep playing.
Instead, the bats went missing again.
This NLDS was defined by Atlanta’s failure to come through in the biggest moments, and Ronald Acuña Jr. sat right at the center of it. He finished the postseason with just three hits, none for extra bases, and zero RBIs.
The numbers are bad enough on their own, but they still don’t quite capture how lost he looked. He barely squared anything up over six games, and when runners got into scoring position, opposing pitchers treated his at-bats like they were in their favor.
Game 2 said plenty. The Dodgers intentionally walked Drake Baldwin to load the bases with one out and bring Acuña to the plate, and he rolled into an inning-ending double play.
Braves fans were hoping a return to Truist Park might change the feel of the series. It didn’t.
Acuña didn’t get a hit in the final two games, and he failed three different times with runners in scoring position. The last one came in his final at-bat of the season, a weak first-pitch grounder to shortstop that drew boos from the home crowd.
But pinning this on Acuña alone would miss the larger problem. Matt Olson and Drake Baldwin disappeared too.
Olson finished with four hits, a .148 average and a .459 OPS. Baldwin was even quieter, hitting .111 with a .348 OPS.
As a team, Atlanta went 1-for-23 with runners in scoring position in the NLDS, the second-worst mark in MLB history.
That’s what makes this loss so brutal. The Dodgers didn’t steamroll the Braves.
The series was there to be taken. The bullpen was mostly excellent, and Tyler Mahle threw a gem in Game 4.
One or two timely hits, and the Braves are the ones moving on to the NLCS.
Instead, the same old October conversation is back: the pitching shows up, the offense vanishes.
Since the 2021 World Series, the Braves have won just one playoff series, a three-game sweep of the Phillies at home. In that span, they’ve played 17 postseason games and scored 40 runs total, which works out to 2.3 per game. At some point, that isn’t a blip anymore.
So yes, change feels necessary. The harder part is figuring out where it can actually come from. A lot of this roster is tied up long term, and the names Atlanta might consider moving - Austin Riley, Spencer Strider, Sean Murphy - probably wouldn’t bring much back, if anything.
Michael Harris II is not going anywhere. He’s on one of the most team-friendly contracts in the league, and he’s also one of the few Braves who tends to show up in October. Ozzie Albies could be available, but replacing a middle infielder set to make just $7 million is no easy task.
That leaves the uncomfortable conversation: Ronald Acuña Jr. His value around the league is something the Braves may have to seriously examine.
Some fans would welcome Alex Anthopoulos making those calls. Others can’t imagine the 2023 NL MVP in anything but a Braves uniform.
It’s easy, the day after a season ends, to want to dump the stock. Acuña was awful in this postseason and has struggled in October for a while now.
The injury history only complicates things. If there isn’t an extension coming, letting him walk in two years would be a painful outcome.
But the other side is impossible to ignore. With Acuña on the field, the Braves have regularly won 95 to 100 games.
Without him, they look ordinary. What he brings over 162 games - the production, the energy, the spark in the clubhouse - still matters.
Atlanta isn’t moving on from that unless someone overwhelms them with an offer.
In Other News...
Braves Season Ended With The Breakdown Fans Feared Most
For much of October, the Braves were chasing a version of themselves that looked closer to the club fans expected all season, but Game 4 against the Dodgers ended with the kind of unraveling that has lingered over too many recent postseason exits. Los Angeles beat Atlanta 4-1 to close out the NLDS, and the game tilted toward the Dodgers as they took advantage of defensive mistakes and came through with the kind of timely hits that separate a tense playoff night from a breakthrough.
Michael Harris II provided the lone notable spark on offense, but it was never enough to force the Dodgers into real trouble. Instead, Atlanta watched a familiar script play out, with the offense unable to build on small openings and the margin for error shrinking until it disappeared. The Dodgers move on to the NLCS, while the Braves are left with another October that ended the way their fans feared most. [Read more 🡒]
Braves Face A Bigger Question Than Another Early Playoff Exit
The Braves October ended the same way too many recent runs have, with another loss to the Dodgers and another quick exit from the postseason. This one stings differently, though, because Atlanta did take a real step forward under first-year manager Walt Weiss, winning the National League East and piling up 94 regular-season wins after a down year the season before.
Still, the bigger question hanging over the winter is not just why the Braves could not get past Los Angeles again. It is whether the core that has driven this era can keep doing it at the level Atlanta needs, with concerns swirling around the recent performance trends of Austin Riley, Ozzie Albies, Ronald Acua Jr. and Sean Murphy. There is enough young talent in the pipeline to keep hope alive, but the Braves have reached the point where promise has to translate into something more lasting. [Read more 🡒]
Tyler Mahle Just Made The Braves' Offseason Much More Interesting
Tyler Mahles brief run with Atlanta in the 2026 NLDS against the Dodgers gave the Braves another arm they could trust in October, and it also gave the front office something to think about once the offseason arrived. Mahle said he enjoyed his time with the club and made clear he would be open to coming back if the chance comes together, which is exactly the kind of comment a team pays attention to after a postseason series.
The challenge for Atlanta is that this one may not be simple to line up quickly. Mahle is expected to draw interest from multiple teams in a shallow free-agent market, and while there is obvious mutual interest in keeping the door open, no agreement is in place yet. For a Braves club always trying to balance upside, timing and cost on the pitching side, that leaves Mahle as one of the more intriguing names to watch this winter. [Read more 🡒]