Around 10 minutes after the Braves recorded the final out to clinch a postseason berth, staffers began rolling huge boxes of champagne, on ice, into the clubhouse. Inside that room, the same one that saw the Braves’ trials and tribulations, this triumphant team celebrated an improbable accomplishment.
All season, the Braves’ clubhouse housed some of their worst moments: The Spencer Strider news, the Ronald Acuña Jr. news, the Austin Riley news and much more. In that room, the Braves dealt with one gut punch after another.
On this night, they popped champagne and smoked cigars because they defeated each one of those unfortunate circumstances. The Braves could not party hard – they had a flight to San Diego to catch – but they did not take this moment for granted.
“No,” Sean Murphy said. “Every time you make the playoffs or advance, you want to make sure you savor it, because it just doesn’t always happen. It’s never guaranteed.”
With their 3-0 victory over the Mets in the second game of Monday’s doubleheader, the Braves, who finished 89-73, clinched a postseason berth for the seventh consecutive season. Beginning Tuesday, they’ll play the Padres at Petco Park in a best-of-three wild card series.
The Braves’ postseason journey begins with the familiar theme of hardship: Manager Brian Snitker said he doesn’t think Chris Sale – scratched from that second game of the doubleheader due to back spasms – will be available in San Diego. This is crushing news, but this group has dealt with so much.
What can’t it overcome?
No Acuña. No Strider. No Riley. No A.J. Minter. Tons of other injuries throughout the season. A lack of offense. Poor play in spots.
And yet, here they were, hooting and hollering, dumping champagne and beer on one another, hugging it out, relishing the good times.
“This is probably, for this organization, probably one of the most formative wins we’ve ever had,” Braves chairman Terry McGuirk said. “Because we sort of got counted out. We didn’t expect that, after the early losses of all the players, that we would finish as strong as we did. … That’s where this team showed the best. If (Brian Snitker) hadn’t gotten everybody going, had this great last week, we’re not here right now.”
“Man, just taking it to the very end – literally,” Snitker said of what he’ll recall about this team. “I’ll remember this group of guys and what they went through. Everybody that’s in this tournament goes through – nobody had an easy path in here. Everybody had adversity and the teams that their guys don’t get caught up in that, end up doing well.”
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
In his office, Snitker, wearing the T-shirt given to postseason-bound teams, wore an exasperated smile. You could tell he was exhausted. And how could he not be? His team faced a do-or-die scenario after it lost the first game of the doubleheader in demoralizing fashion. The Braves were nine innings away from their season ending, but they found a way – again. On each step of the journey, they’ve found a way.
“I feel like a lot of clubhouses could kind of shut down with the stuff that we were going through and the kind of ball that we were playing,” Matt Olson said. “But we got a bunch of guys who had been in here and have won, and have won. You can’t just drag your blanket around and feel sorry for yourself, you gotta find a way to move on and get a win. It wasn’t the cleanest year for us, but we got in. It took us 162, but we got in there and we’re ready to roll.”
“Just believing in each other,” Michael Harris II said. “(Braves president of baseball operations and general manager Alex Anthopoulos) does a good job of bringing in guys that can, I guess, bond well with us, and continue to win. So, we did a good job and they did a good job of filling in as well.”
At the start of the celebration, which wasn’t as crazy as usual because the team must play Tuesday, Harris wore a Falcons helmet, perfect for shielding the eyes from champagne. Near him, Marcell Ozuna took a selfie with others. Gio Urshela, one of the fill-ins, sprayed champagne at Ozuna. In another corner, Strider chatted with a couple teammates. Ozzie Albies and Orlando Arcia, who possess the energy to fuel an entire city, ran around and had fun with teammates.
At one point during an interview, Murphy brought up Grant Holmes, who started the clinching game with four scoreless innings. “It couldn’t have been a worse situation for him, but he did what he had to do and he got us a win,” Murphy said. And he’s correct there.
Around 30 or 35 minutes before the beginning of the second game, Holmes got word that he’d start. Sale couldn’t go. Holmes shined.
It took Murphy back years, to his first Double-A game in Oakland’s organization. The first pitcher he caught: Holmes. He remembers Holmes giving up a bunch of runs, but shrugging it off and continuing to pitch because, well, he had pitches left.
“Right then, it’s like, ‘Oh, this guy’s made of something,’” Murphy said. “When we asked him to do what he did today, I never had a doubt, because of the experience I had with him in 2017 and beyond. I just always know that he’s game.”
Holmes grew up a Braves fan. He spent 10 seasons in the minors, for different organizations, before Atlanta called him up this season.
And on Monday night, he stood in front of cameras and recorders, soaked in champagne, having just helped his childhood team reach October.
“There aren’t words for it, you know?” Holmes said. “Just a surreal moment. Super grateful and blessed. Just thankful.”
The Braves will take the estimated four-hour flight to San Diego, where a tough Padres team awaits. San Diego will start Michael King in Tuesday’s Game 1, which begins at 5:38 p.m. The Braves’ pitching plans: Unknown. Snitker said they had four hours in the air to figure it out.
The Braves almost missed the postseason. Now, they’re playing with house money.
Count them out at your own peril.
This week, remember this: Postseason baseball is unlike anything else. It is wild. It is random. It is unpredictable. The regular season often means little.
The Braves have been on both ends of this. In 2021, they stunned everyone with a magical World Series run. The next two seasons, they were eliminated in the first round.
Now, they’re the ones playing with house money. And that might make them dangerous.
“I think we’ve been on the other side of things in the past, and now we’re kind of in the position where we can ruin a lot of other peoples’ postseasons,” said Minter, one of the guys out for the season. “I think it’s just to embrace these last few days and take it as an advantage. We’ve been playing really good baseball and competitive baseball, and those other teams, they’ve been sitting on their butt these past few days, or they’re going to be. We’ve been on the other side of things. It starts now. We have the pitching staff to do it, we have the hitters, we have the team. Now it’s just time to ruin other peoples’ dreams.”
In the days leading up to Monday, much was made about how the Braves and Mets would fare in the postseason after playing 18 innings and flying somewhere else, with no off day to settle in and prepare for the next series. Surely, it would provide a disadvantage, right?
In a champagne-soaked clubhouse filled with cigar smoke, all that existed was the belief that this team, which has overcome so much, could ride this wave of momentum to something special.
“Oh no, there’s gonna be enough adrenaline to go around for everybody,” Olson said. “Playoff baseball is why you do 162. It’s the prize. You go out and you play meaningful baseball. To have a chance to win a World Series, we ain’t worried about 18 innings today and a flight. We’re gonna go play.”
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