All the way back in March, there were still plenty of questions about this Atlanta Braves ballclub as the curtain was being raised on the 2026 season. Would the squad as a whole be able to get over the injury bug that hampered their 2024 season and then wrecked their 2025 season? Would the rotation have enough to get through the long season? Would they be able to fend off two contenders in particular from the Northeast? Would they be able to get over losing one of their starters for an entire season du
Would this team respond positively to having a new manager in charge?
There were plenty of questions heading into the 2026 season and as far as the regular season goes, the answers were all positive. It’s September 21 and the Atlanta Braves are NL East champions once again. For the seventh time in nine years, the Braves are the top dogs in their division and their two years in the wilderness when it comes to the East have come to an end.
While it may not be a massive shock to see this particular Braves team make it back to the top of the divisional mountain, it is a pleasant surprise that the Braves ended up basically going wire-to-wire. From Opening Day on March 27 until now, the Braves went into every game this season either tied for first place or by themselves at the top. There was no need for a late-season surge or an extremely dramatic race going down to the very last week of the season where they flip-flopped in the standings — the Braves got their surge done early on in the season and maintained from that point forward and now they’ve clinched the divisional title with a week to spare.
That’s not to say that this was easy — as Walt Weiss mentioned in the away clubhouse in Houston before the champagne started flowing, winning a division is never easy since you’ve got to be on top of things for a solid six months. It’s a massive challenge and as it turns out, the Braves were up to the challenge. They took advantage of both the Phillies and the Mets stumbling out of the gate to start the season, they survived a serious run of malaise in June and halfway through July that saw the lead fall down to just two games by the All-Star break. The lead got back as high as nine-and-a-half games on August 12 but again dipped down to being as low as three games on September 9.
If the pressure that the Phillies was putting on them was clear in the standings, it wasn’t apparent by the way that the Braves responded to that pressure. When the lead fell down to just two games on July 18, Atlanta responded by rattling off 14 wins out of 18. When it was down to three on August 22, the Braves went on a seven-game run that included a sweep of the Dodgers. When the Phillies were within striking distance with a stretch looming that saw the Braves face Philadelphia seven times over ten games, the Braves responded by going winning five of those seven games. Dusting off the divisional title with a sweep in Houston (their first sweep on the road since May, mind you) was just another example of how when the circumstances called for it, the Braves were usually able to rise up to moment and take care of business when they needed to.
The much-maligned rotation also deserves plenty of praise for how they performed over the course of this season. There were real questions for everybody in this rotation — including the ace of the rotation, Chris Sale. Thanks to some reportedly impressive preseason workout regimens, Sale was able to not just ward off Father Time but deliver one of the best seasons of his career so far — at age 37!
Meanwhile, Martín Pérez admitted early on that this was the first time that he had felt healthy since 2023 and he responded to the faith that the Braves organization placed in him by delivering his most productive season since 2022. The questions concerning Atlanta’s action (or lack therof) at the trade deadline were answered by Tyler Mahle arriving and immediately stepping his game up once he entered Atlanta’s rotation. Bryce Elder was able to be productive more-often-than-not, himself and Grant Holmes has shown flashes of being an incredible effective option in the rotation all season. It’s a group that’s proven to be greater than the sum of its parts, and that’s even with guys like Spencer Strider being injured for the most part and Spencer Schwellenbach being gone for the entire season.
Outside of Chris Sale, however, the biggest star on this pitching staff has collectively been the bullpen. Raisel Iglesias has had his ups and downs but as you can imagine by the fact that he’s still closing, there have been more “ups” than “downs.” With that being said, this bullpen is certainly more than just its closer and that’s been proven with the way that Didier Fuentes, Dylan Lee, Dylan Dodd and everybody else who’s been called upon in big spots has usually managed to go in and get the job done in very effective fashion. With Robert Suarez potentially returning, that just makes this bullpen even tougher to deal with down the road and for all we know, this could very well be the successor group to the Night Shift from 2021 that we’ve all been waiting for.
The bullpen keeping teams in games has been crucial since Atlanta’s offense has proven all season that they can get it done late in games against the other team’s bullpen. Heading into Sunday’s action, the Braves had the second-best wRC+ in the National League when it came to production from the seventh inning through the ninth inning, with a wRC+ of 109 in that situation. It’s only gotten better for Atlanta recently, as they’ve been hitting at a clip of 130 wRC+ as a team in the seventh, eighth, and ninth innings since August 1. That’s still tied for second in the NL (in both scenarios behind the Cubs) but it’s proof that this is a team that can make a run late in games if they need to.
We saw a perfect example of it this past weekend in Houston. Ronald Acuña Jr.’s grand slam broke the game open for Atlanta in the seventh inning. They’ve won games late and they know how to pull off comeback victories as well, as a whopping 41 of their 92 wins so far have been of the comeback variety. The comeback victories are actually a trend from last season, when the Braves pulled off comeback victories in 41 of the 76 games that they won in 2025. They also did it 43 times when they won 104 games in 2023 and then picked up 38 comeback victories when they won it all back in 2021. Fighting for 27 outs has been akey factor in Atlanta’s success in this current era and it’s something that Walt Weiss has carried over from the Snitker Era to his current time as manager so far.
So while Atlanta’s offense hasn’t been nearly as potent as it was in those 2022 and 2023 seasons, they’ve been doing enough to get the job done and keep the line moving. Having Acuña continue to perform at a high level entering the Postseason would be crucial and it would also be huge to see Matt Olson continue to hit balls far and deep like he’s done all season. Michael Harris II’s consistency would be greatly appreciated in October and then having a hitter like Mauricio Dubón who has consistently come through in big moments for the Braves will also be huge going forward as well. Drake Baldwin has star potential, himself and then both Ozzie Albies and Austin Riley should be able to provide the experience to not be blinded by the bright lights of October since they’ve been there, done that, and have plenty of celebratory t-shirts to prove it when it comes to Postseason experience.
All in all, you have to like where this Braves team is at as they head into the Postseason as NL East champions. The rotation will be shortened during the Postseason so that makes things a bit easier for Walt Weiss to keep track of going forward. The bullpen is a strength and it’s especially important for the relievers to come up big during this time of year. It’s also important for the timely hitting to be there as well and the Braves have shown that they’re capable of getting that timely offensive production in late game situations and in high-leverage situations as well.
As long as they can stay healthy, the Braves have got all the ingredients to get a deep Postseason run cooking and in a NL bracket that appears to be extremely competitive, it’s not like there’s a going to be a clear-cut favorite this October. The Dodgers look as vulnerable as ever, the Brewers are definitely in a position where they need to finally prove that they can do something in the offseason, the Cubs offense is dangerous but they’ve also been prone to running extremely cold at times, the Phillies have struggled against the Braves all season and the Padres could very well run out of gas by the time the Postseason runs around (though admittedly, that is a scary team to face with the way that they’ve been playing lately). It’s a wide open bracket and it’s a wide open Postseason as well since the American League hasn’t been as good when compared to the National League.
So there’s plenty of reason to feel optimistic. The Braves are back on top of the division, they’ve proven to be resilient whenever the situation has called for it, they’ve bounced back from adversity on plenty of different occasions during this season and they’ll be entering the Postseason after playing a whole bunch of games against contenders for weeks on end. Here’s hoping that there’s a fun Postseason ahead for us fans and one that could potentially end with a parade in Atlanta (hopefully a slower one if it does happen) and Cobb County to start off November. That sure would be fun, right? Let’s see what happens!
