The Cycle, Issue 108: The Braves win the World Series
I recap Game 6, hand out awards, detail how the Braves won, dig through the archives to trace The Cycle's coverage of the Braves this year & bid farewell to the Astros with their Wait 'Til Next Year
In this issue of The Cycle . . .
The Atlanta Braves are the 2021 World Series Champions. Below, I recap their decisive victory in Game 6, hand out some awards for individual World Series performances, look back on some of my coverage of the Braves this season, then give the Astros their due with this year’s 29th and final edition of Wait ‘Til Next Year.
2021 World Series
Braves defeat Astros, 4-2
Game 6
The Atlanta Braves beat the Houston Astros, 7–0, in Tuesday night’s Game 6 of the 2021 World Series to win the franchise’s first championship since 1995, its second since moving to Atlanta in 1966 and, amazingly, just its fourth since the creation of the modern World Series in 1903. That final score made Tuesday night’s game the most lopsided World Series clincher since the Kansas City Royals beat the St. Louis Cardinals 11–0 in Game 7 of the 1985 Fall Classic.
However, there was a brief moment, in the bottom of the first inning, when the game nearly headed in a different direction. After Astros starter Luis Garcia, pitching on three days’ rest, retired the Braves in order in the top of the first, striking out Jorge Soler and Freddie Freeman, Jose Altuve led off the bottom of the first with an infield single off Braves starter Max Fried. Michael Brantley followed with weak chopper to Freeman at first. Freeman fielded the ball in on the grass and turned to flip the ball to Fried, but Fried, who had to turn almost 180 degrees to get the throw from Freeman, got tangled up trying to step on the bag. Reaching awkwardly for the first base with his right foot, Fried never got there, and Brantley, trying to avoid a collision, stepped directly on Fried’s right ankle, stumbling past the bag (without touching it). Fried and Brantley both wound up splayed out in the dirt around first base, and Brantley was called safe.
The Braves opted not to review the call, even though Brantley never touched the bag, and his stepping on Fried’s ankle appears to be what stopped Fried’s foot on its progress toward the base. Instead, Fried was charged with an error, the Astros had men on first and second with none out, and the Braves trainer came out to the field to check on the condition of Fried’s ankle and watch him throw some practice throws to test it.
At that moment, Game 6 was straddling two timelines. In the alternate reality, Fried was unable to continue, the Astros went on to have a big inning, Garcia continued his dominance, and the Series proceeded to Game 7 tonight. In this reality, Fried was not only fine, he was dominant.
After that awkward play on the chopper by Brantley, Fried struck out Carlos Correa, got Yordan Alvarez to groundout (with both runners advancing), then struck out Yuli Gurriel looking to strand them both. The Astros wouldn’t get another runner past first base in the game.
After the Brantley play, Fried faced the minimum until Brantley got a clean single with two outs in the sixth. The only two baserunners he allowed in between were leadoff singles by Martín Maldonado and Carlos Correa in the third and fourth, both erased by double plays (Maldonado by on an inning-ending double play by Brantley). Fried then stranded Brantley in the sixth by striking out Correa for the second time.
Meanwhile, Garcia worked a perfect second, but ran into trouble with two outs in the third. After Ozzie Albies, dropped to seventh in the order in this game in favor of Jorge Soler batting second, led off the third with a single, Garcia got Travis d’Arnaud and Dansby Swanson to fly out, but Eddie Rosario worked a walk, and Jorge Soler locked horns with Garcia in a battle that marked the second, and ultimately decisive, turning point in the game.
Soler got ahead 1-0 and 3-1 by taking a pair of cutters and a fastball. Garcia then went to his slider to get a called strike two, but Soler fouled off a second slider, then a 96 mile-per-hour fastball. With that, Garcia went back to the slider, but the pitch broke right into Soler’s happy zone, thigh-high on the inside half of the plate, and Soler blasted it over the train tracks in Minute Maid Park’s left field for a 446-foot, three-run home run.
From there, it was all Braves. Garcia got an immediate hook. Swanson hit a two-run homer off Cristian Javier in the bottom of the fifth, and Freddie Freeman drove in a two-out walk to Soler with a double, both off lefty Blake Taylor later that inning. In the seventh, Freeman added a solo homer of his own to set the final score at 7–0, and, after Fried got an early hook after six full innings and just 74 pitches, Tyler Matzek (2 IP, 1 H, 0 BB, 4 K) and Will Smith (a perfect ninth) completed the shutout.
With that, the Braves became just the second team in World Series history to win it all in a season in which they had a losing record at the All-Star break. In 1964, the Cardinals were 39-40 (.494) at the break, but went 54-29 (.651, a 105-win pace) over the remainder of the regular season and beat the Yankees in a seven-game World Series. This year, the Braves were 44-45 (.494) at the break and 54-55 (.495) on August 4, the latest any World Series winner has ever had a losing record.
However, they went 36-18 (.667) from August 3 through the end of the regular season and 11-5 in the postseason, never once facing an elimination game. You only have to go back to the 2014 Giants to find another 88-win team that won the World Series. What’s more, if you add up the Braves’ regular- and postseason wins after August 3, over a span of 70 games, with nearly a quarter of those coming in the postseason, the Braves went 47-23 (.671), a 109-win pace over 162 games. They may have taken an unconventional route to get there, and it may feel weird for them to have done it with their best player, Ronald Acuña Jr., watching idly following a mid-season ACL tear, but the Braves played like a championship-level team for more than just those last 16 games. They played at that level for a solid three months, and I congratulate them on their persistence, their faith in themselves, both on the field and in the front office, and on doing what just one other Atlanta Braves team has ever done, winning the World Series.
Awards
Unofficial (and Official) MVP: Jorge Soler, RF, Braves (.300/.391/.800, 3 HR, 2B, 3 BB)
Note: All three of Soler’s home runs were tie-breaking home runs. He led off the entire series with his first—becoming the first player ever to homer in the first plate appearance of a World Series—his second broke a 2–2 tie in Game 4, and his third broke a scoreless tie in Game 6, those last two proving to be game-winners.
Unofficial MVP runner-up: Tyler Matzek, LHP, Braves (4 G, 5 1/3 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 7 K)
Note: Matzek preserved the lead in all four of the Astros’ wins. Only Will Smith could say the same, but Matzek got four more outs than Smith in the series, and had six more strikeouts.
Unofficial LVP: Framber Valdez, LHP, Astros (2 GS, 4 2/3 IP, 12 H, 10 R, 3 BB, 3 K)
Losing Team MVP: Phil Maton, RHP, Astros (5 G, 5 2/3 IP, 7 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 8 K, stranded 4 of 5 inherited runners)
Note: Maton led both teams in relief innings, was not charged with a run. The one inherited runner he allowed to score was on second base when he entered the game and scored on a single to left fielder Yordan Alvarez, a play on which a better fielder might have been able to prevent the run from scoring.
How the Braves Won
I didn’t say it explicitly in The Cycle’s World Series preview, but I did in a satellite radio appearance I made just prior to the start of the Series: the Braves’ recipe for winning this series was to avoid getting into a slugfest with the powerful Astros lineup. That’s exactly what they did. In the four games the Braves won, the Astros scored a total of just four runs. That’s from a team that averaged more than five runs per game in the regular season and nearly seven runs per game in the first two rounds of the playoffs.
How did they do that? Their high-leverage bullpen arms were a huge part of it. Lefties Will Smith and Tyler Matzek, both of whom pitched in all four Braves wins, and righties Luke Jackson and Chris Martin combined to record 28 percent of the Braves outs in this series (15 1/3 of 54 innings) while allowing just one run and stranding all of their inherited runners. In addition, Game 3 and 6 starters Ian Anderson and Max Fried and Game 4 bulk-innings pitcher Kyle Wright combined to allow just one run in 15 2/3 innings. Those seven pitchers combined for 85 percent of the outs the Braves recorded in their four wins. Add Charlie Morton’s injury-shortened start in the Braves’ win in Game 1 (in which Jackson, Matzek and Smith combined for the final four innings), and that’s 92 percent of the outs in Atlanta’s four wins by eight pitchers who, combined, allowed just two runs in 33 1/3 innings.
And how did they do that? You might be surprised to learn that the Astros drew more walks than the Braves and struck out six fewer times than their opponents in this series, or that the Braves hit just .239 with a .303 on-base percentage on the series, the latter just five points higher than the Astros’ .298 mark.
The big difference between the two teams when it came to run scoring was hitting for power. The Astros had 10 extra base hits in the six games and just two home runs, both solo shots by Jose Altuve. The Braves had 18 extra base hits, 11 of them home runs, including a grand slam by Adam Duvall, a two-run shot by Duvall in Game 1, and a three-run shot by Soler in the clincher. On the series, the Braves slugged .443 with a .204 isolated power; the Astros slugged a pathetic .299 with a mere .075 ISO.
When not hitting home runs, the Braves didn’t have a great Series at the plate. Eight of their homers were solo shots, but their ability to silence the Astros’ powerful bats made nearly every run the Braves scored a devastating blow, even in their losses. The five runs the Braves scored in their loss in Game 5 gave them a pair of leads, and the first of their two runs in Game 2 tied the game. Only Atlanta’s fifth-inning run in Game 2 didn’t matter, and the fact that the other 24 runs did was due to the remarkable work of the Braves’ pitchers.
The Cycle on the Braves
There’s no need to write a Wait ‘Til Next Year for the Braves. This is next year for them. Still, I’ve enjoyed the accountability aspect of those Wait ‘Til Next Year capsules, so I wanted to share some things I wrote about the Braves as the season unfolded.
My preseason prediction (March 26): “These Braves are good, they’re young, they’re fun, and they are the team to beat in this division, once again.”
On likely buyers and sellers at the deadline (July 7): “[The Braves, Phillies, and Nationals] all have losing records heading into Wednesday’s games, but they’re also all within five games of the Mets in the National League East. The Braves have the worst record but a positive run differential and are a young, talented team coming off a three division titles and a deep run last postseason. The Phillies and Nationals also have talent, and all three have played the Mets tough in recent weeks, going a combined 10–6 against New York. A division title would put them directly into the Division Series, but if the now-healthy Mets start to pull away, their wild-card hopes are close to nil (less than two percent entering Tuesday’s games per Davenport). This is where we find teams that might look to buy, but should be more interested in multi-year acquisitions than stretch-run rentals.”
Reacting to the Acuña injury (July 12): “This injury would seem to drive a stake through the hearts of the Braves’ hopes of climbing back into the postseason picture in the second half. The Braves haven’t spent a single day above .500 all season. They got back to .500 with a win on Saturday and seemed to be gaining momentum, but this injury, on top of the news that Mike Soroka won’t pitch this year and Marcell Ozuna’s self-imposed domestic-violence exile, could be what convinces Atlanta to sell as they approach the trading deadline.”
Reacting to the Braves’ deadline additions (Aug 1): “[General manager Alex] Anthopoulos’s on-the-fly outfield reconstruction was impressively resourceful (even if Soler and Rosario have been awful this season), but the most compelling trade he made sent rotation prospect Bryse Wilson to the Pirates for closer Richard Rodríguez.”
Assessing the Braves’ struggles (Aug 4): “There was no good reason to expect anything less than another division title and deep postseason run from them this year. In my preview, my only concern was the bullpen, and that didn’t stop me from proclaiming them ‘the team to beat in this division, once again.’ At the deadline, however, the Braves were in third place at 51-52, and they hadn’t spent a single day all season above .500 (still haven’t). Why? According to my explanatory wins, the primary culprit has been that blasted bullpen. The Braves’ bullpen is 3-13 per explanatory wins, that’s a .188 winning percentage. Only the Diamondbacks (3-18) and, somewhat surprisingly, the Astros (3-14) have been worse.
“That’s not all that has gone wrong, however. The offense has underperformed relative to expectations. Catcher Travis d’Arnaud didn’t hit, then suffered a thumb injury that put him on the shelf for three months (though he is now close to returning). Marcell Ozuna didn’t hit, then got hurt, then hurt his wife in a manner that will likely result in a suspension that carries over into next year, if not jail time. Cristian Pache didn’t stick in centerfield, and the Braves are still trying to figure out how to replace him. At the deadline, the Braves traded for four outfielders and a catcher in the hopes of shoring up that broke half of the lineup, as well as a high-leverage reliever in Pittsburgh’s Richard Rodríguez. It’s too early to say if those moves will work but, as with the Yankees, they showed a keen understanding of a (admittedly rather obvious) problem.”
Reacting to the Braves’ clinching the NL East (Oct 1): “The Braves didn’t’ get above .500 until August 6 and didn’t spend their first day in first place until August 15, but they have gone 34-18 (.654) since the calendar flipped to August, and look ready to take on all comers in the postseason.”
Division Series prediction (Oct. 8): “The Braves finished the season as a better team than their final record suggests, and the Brewers seemed to be running out of gas. Factor in the reverse homefield advantage, [Devin] Williams’s injury, and the Braves’ relative advantage in playoff experience, and I think I have to lean toward Atlanta on this one.”
NLCS prediction (Oct. 16): “The uncertainty and strain placed on the Dodgers’ rotation gives the Braves an opening here, but the Dodgers are quite clearly the better team in nearly every respect and have the depth and bullpen to overcome those difficulties. Dodgers in 6.”
NLCS reaction (Oct. 24): “The Dodgers didn’t lose the NLCS by much. Two of the Braves’ four wins were walk-offs, and the last game was decided by two runs. The final score of the series was 28–27 Braves, and the Dodgers, as a team, had a higher OPS (.755 to .743) and lower ERA (two Braves runs were unearned) than Atlanta over the six games of the series. Given that narrow margin, it seems fair to say that those late injuries [to Justin Turner and Max Scherzer] made the difference and cost [the Dodgers] a chance to defend their title and seek revenge against the Astros in the World Series.”
World Series preview (Oct. 26): “The Braves have been winning small, which is a credit to the quality of their play and the effectiveness of their bullpen, but the Astros have been winning big, which is a credit to the quality of their roster and their lineup. I think the Astros are the better team, so here’s to Dusty [Baker] getting that elusive championship, and the Braves returning to the Series with a healthy Ronald Acuña Jr. in the near future. Astros in 6.”
That October 26 issue also contains an extensive recap of the Braves’ season from their opening sweep at the hands of the Phillies to their NLCS victory over the 106-win Dodgers.
Wait ‘Til Next Year
Houston Astros
Final Record: 95-67 (.586, 1st place AL West)
Playoff Result: Lost World Series to Braves 4-2
My Prediction: “I fully expect [the Astros’ infielders] to rebound [from 2020], enough so that that Astros should keep things interesting atop the division this year.” I subsequently picked the Astros to win the AL West, but said that I expected the teams at the top of the division to be “tightly bunched both with each other and the two wild-card teams.”
Reality Check: The Astros won the division by five games and were three games better than the two wild-card teams, but it didn’t feel even that close.
What Went Right in 2021:
As I expected, the Astros’ lineup rebounded in a big way, despite the loss of George Springer to free agency. Yordan Alvarez returned to the lineup and finished second on the team with a 136 OPS+, behind Kyle Tucker, who broke out with a team-leading 147 OPS+. Yuli Gurriel went from a 77 OPS+ in 2020 to the batting title and a 131 OPS+ in 2021. Jose Altuve went from a 71 OPS+ to a 127 mark. Carlos Correa, in his walk year, went from a 93 OPS+ to a 131. Only Alex Bregman didn’t rebound, though that could be blamed in part on the injuries that limited him to 91 games during the regular season.
Altogether, the Astros went from matching the major-league average in runs scored per game in 2020 (4.65) to leading the majors in runs per game in 2021 (5.33).
In the rotation, Lance McCullers Jr. had the best year of his career, qualified for the ERA title for the first time, and could pick up some Cy Young votes. Rookie Luis Garcia was arguably the team’s second-best starter and is likely to finish in the top three in the Rookie of the Year voting. Framber Valdez made a much faster recovery than expected from the broken finger he suffered in Spring Training, spiked his groundball rate, and was outstanding over 22 starts.
Altogether, the Astros had the second-best rotation ERA in the American League (3.60) and had six pitchers—McCullers, Garcia, Valdez, Zack Greinke, José Urquidy, and Jake Odorizzi—make 20 or more starts with an ERA+ of 102 or better.
The bullpen, led by dominant closer Ryan Pressly, was better than league average and benefitted from the deadline additions of Mariners closer Kendall Graveman, Marlins closer Yimi García, and postseason stud Phil Maton.
Altogether, the Astros’ pitching staff ranked third in the AL both fewest runs allowed (4.06 per game) and staff ERA+ (114).
The Astros crushed the White Sox in the Division Series, outscoring them 31–18 in four games.
The Astros battled back from a 2-games-to-1 deficit in the ALCS to beat the Red Sox in six games and win the pennant.
What Went Wrong in the World Series:
The loss of McCullers to a forearm strain at the end of the Division Series loomed large over a World Series in which only one Astros starter pitched past the fourth inning and none threw a pitch in the sixth inning.
Still, the Astros only allowed 4.2 runs per game in the World Series. They lost because they didn’t hit. The Astros hit just .224/.298/.299 as a team in the World Series, scoring just 3.3 runs per game and just four total runs in their four losses. Most notably, they hit just two home runs, both Jose Altuve solo shots, in the Series, and, as described above, had a pathetic .075 isolated power. By way of comparison, Dee Strange-Gordon’s career ISO is .074, and only two other active players—Ruben Tejada and Andrew Romine—have a lower career ISO (both .067) in at least 1,000 major-league plate appearances.
Feedback
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You can also write me at cyclenewsletter[at]substack[dot]com, or @ me on twitter @CliffCorcoran.
Closing Credits
In celebration of the Braves’ first championship since 1995, let’s wind the clock back to 1996 and the title track of the sophomore album by Atlanta-based hip-hop duo OutKast, “ATLiens” (pronounced A-T-L-iens in the third verse of the song).
In 1996, the South was still working to gain respect as a hip-hop hotbed at a time when the genre was still dominated by New York and Los Angeles. In 1995, Master P relocated No Limit records to New Orleans and started signing local talent. In Atlanta, L.A. Reid and Babyface’s LaFace Records, which started as an R&B label in 1989, made similar strides. Atlanta had already produced TLC, an R&B trio with a heavy hip-hop influence, the Afrocentric group Arrested Development, and one-hit-wonders Tag Team, but it was the emergence of Goodie Mob in 1995 and OutKast in 1996, both on LaFace, that launched the Dirty South sound and made the South a real player in the genre.
OutKast, the first artists I’ve repeated in this section in the 108 issues of this newsletter, formed in 1992 when the eccentric André Benjamin (a.k.a. André 3000) and the diminutive Antwan “Big Boi” Patton were in high school. They signed with LaFace upon graduation, and debuted on a TLC remix in 1992. They dropped their debut single, “Player’s Ball,” in 1993, and their debut album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, in 1994. They won Best New Rap Group at the Source Awards in 1995, the same year the Braves won their last championship. That award helped OutKast’s debut album go platinum, and when André accepted it by telling the crowd “the South got something to say,” it helped the South gain respect in the hip-hop community as a compelling and creative alternative to the then-raging and self-destructive East Coast–West Coast rivalry.
ATLiens went double platinum. The title track, it’s second single, hit 35 in the Billboard hot 100. On the cover of the album, André and Big Boi are depicted as comic-book characters. Big Boi’s character is wearing a white-crowned Atlanta Braves cap (as you can see in the video below, which is of a clean edit of the song).
So throw your hands in the ay-er
And wave ‘em like you just don’t cay-er
And if you like fish and grits and all that . . .
Then everybody let me hear you say oh-yay-er
The Cycle will return on Friday to light the Hot Stove with a look at this offseason’s free-agent class, plus what to expect from the newsletter over the winter.
In the meantime . . .