The Los Angeles Dodgers will visit Atlanta Braves this weekend to host a three-game series starting Friday night at Truist Park. This is a replay of the 2021 NLCS – and indeed 2020. Could this be a preview of the third consecutive league championship between these two NL titans? Maybe.
Here is a series schedule with pitching probabilities.
The biggest story, of course, is the return of long-time Braves star Freddie Freeman.
In 2007, the brave chose the second round of high school. In 2011, Freeman won second place in the NL’s Newcomer of the Year vote for the club, played for some of the candidates, took part in the demolition and rebuilding, and was then the team leader. To the 2021 World Championship title. In his time with Braves, he was a five-time All-Star, a three-time Silver Slugger, a Gold Glover and an MVP. He is ranked 12th in franchise history at WAR after 10 Hall of Fame, in addition to Andruw Jones and Dale Murphy.
Freeman signed a six-year, $ 162 million contract with Dodgers in the interim. This is his first time playing “enemy” in front of Atlanta fans, although we can expect big applause for his first record.
He is also on fire. In his final five games, Freeman has 11:22 with two doubles, a threes, three home runs and 11 RBIs.
Here are some more points of interest.
Family enemies
18.-20. Until April, the Dodgers took two out of three braves at Dodger Stadium. It was a good moment when Freeman’s son ran to hug Dansby Swanson, Braves’ short breaker, and then Freeman went home in his first attack. Former Kenley Jansen from Dodgers – now with the brave – also received a nice reception from the Dodgers. Jansen would capture the fight in the middle game of the series.
Part of it can be said that Freeman has already faced the brave. We’ve already had Jansen return to Dodger Stadium in another form, and we’ve already had Jansen face the brave. We’ve removed everyone from the list, except for Freeman’s opponent in Atlanta.
Acuña is back
Technically, one more box had to be inspected. When Braves visited LA earlier in the season, Braves superstar Ronald Acuña Jr was not on the injured list yet. Remember, he tore up his ACL last July, and then the brave unlikely went to the title without him.
It may also be recalled that, just before the start of the season, Acuña made some comments about his relationship with Freeman, which attracted a great deal of attention. He later humiliated them and said they were exaggerated, while Freeman did not say anything derogatory about Acuña in response..
Here’s how Acuña plays. He started a little slow, but continues with 41 games of 0.275 / .367 / .456 (125 OPS +), eight doubles, 18 RBIs, 26 runs, 12 halves and 1.5 WARs. Simply, he is again one of the best and The most fun players in baseball.
Not that he’s the only reason to watch Brave. From veterans Austin Riley and Dansby Swanson, to the young William Contreras and Michael Harris, and many other agency staff, well …
Brave rush
The World Cup hangover lasted in May. After two consecutive losses to the Diamondbacks, they were brave 27:31, 10 1/2 of the game’s first and five games away from the playoff position when the calendar went into June.
They would win 14 in a row to start the month. After two losses, they have now won four out of five, pushing them to 18: 3 + 63. If they started the season like this, they would have premature discussions about the “best team ever”.
In the current state, the savages are behind with four more games, but are kept in the second wildcard and are absolutely the appearance of a play-off team. There were some lost people who objected to their winning streak, as it was against only less than 0.500 teams. First, they won every game. Beating weaker teams is only a worthwhile point of discussion if a team wins out of about 10 a month, not 14 in a row. It’s baseball and anyone who knows how the sport works will realize that 14 in a row at any time is amazing. Second, the brave took just three of the four Giants teams that had won seven of the nine and accounted for more than 0.500 in nine games.
The thing is, this is a strong team that is currently playing the best baseball of its year.
Dodgers was in the minifunk
Once you have created a great level, you expect the team to always work that way. As such, if Dodgers has as many losses as you can, it raises eyebrows a bit. From May 30th to June 12th, the Dodgers actually went 4th-9th. Two games were then won against Angels, but two of the three were lost at home to the Guardians. They had a losing record in June and are now in the neck of the NL West with Padres.
They are much better than that and every team goes through funk, but that doesn’t make it any less remarkable.
Anyway, I said “they were” in the subtitle because they just beat the reds with three games and defeated them 26:11. Yes, it was the Reds and they are one of the worst baseball teams this season, but sometimes that’s all it takes to get a great team up and running. Just look at the brave and how their winning streak began.
Something to watch: Max Muncyl, Justin Turner and Cody Bellinger had big games on Thursday. This season, they have collectively reached below Muncy. When the three get hot at the same time, this Dodgers lineup becomes the most dangerous of baseball.
It will be a great baseball weekend.
#DodgersBraves #Freddie #Freeman #Returns #Atlanta