ESPN explains why the Atlanta Braves are the squad to defeat.
The Braves were the best club in baseball from start to end, clinching home-field advantage throughout the postseason with 104 wins. But all of Atlanta’s regular-season accomplishments will be for naught if the Falcons fail to appear in October for the second straight year.
Aside from injury worries, the Braves remain the favourites to win the World Series due to their historic offense. In October, opposition pitchers will face a slew of power threats at every turn, and ESPN acknowledged this while evaluating the prognosis for all 12 playoff clubs as the postseason gets underway.
Why they are the team to beat: Their offense is simply too good to contain. And, while we’ve seen offensive powerhouses fall in the crucible of October before, the Braves’ offense appears to be bulletproof. Their totals hold up regardless of how they are divided. They mash at home and on the road, against lefties and righties, and against pitches of all shapes and sizes. They have power at every position of the lineup. Earlier in the season, it appeared that the Braves had become overly reliant on home runs for scoring, which isn’t necessarily a good thing in the playoffs. However, Atlanta’s offense has become more diversified as the season has proceeded and now appears to be without flaws. Yes.
The Braves’ pitching staff is in doubt, but if their offense is scoring five runs or more a game, it may not matter. – Dr. Doolittle
When discussing the Braves, everyone will bring up the power numbers. They are unprecedented, tying the 2019 Twins for most home runs in a single season. The main difference is that this isn’t the era of the juiced ball. The 2023 Braves are the true long ball kings. They were also the first team in history to achieve a slugging percentage above.500.
However, what is often overlooked among all of these tremendous power figures is that the Braves accomplished all of this while significantly cutting their strikeout percentage. The Braves had the league’s third-worst strikeout rate in 2022, striking out in 24.6% of their at-bats. They are seventh in the league this season, striking out 20.6% of the time. That’s a huge improvement
over a year as a whole, especially for a team that hit 307 home runs.
This is a Braves offense that can hit opposing pitchers in a variety of ways, and their entire order has the ability to influence the game with a single swing. It will be impossible to stop this offensive for even one game, let alone numerous in a five or seven-game series.
Even with some of the strongest offenses in MLB history, October has proven to be an Achilles heel, but the Atlanta Braves’ relentless depth appears to be enough to propel this team to another World Series.
