ATLANTA - Led by an unlikely hero, the Atlanta Braves are headed somewhere that used to be so familiar to them.
The World Series.
Eddie Rosario capped his remarkable National League Championship Series performance with a three-run homer, sending the Braves back to baseball's biggest stage with a 4-2 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday night at Truist Park.
With their Game 6 win against the 2020 World Series champions, the Braves wrapped up the best-of-seven series, exorcising the demons of last year's NLCS - when Atlanta squandered 2-0 and 3-1 leads against the Dodgers - and advancing to face the Houston Astros.
Houston wrapped up the American League Championship Series on Friday night by beating the Boston Red Sox 5-0 in Game 6. The World Series begins Tuesday night at Minute Maid Park in Houston; the Astros have home-field advantage after winning 95 games in the regular season.
"It's truly a great moment, not just in my career, but in my life as well," Rosario, who was named MVP of the NLCS, said through an interpreter. "But I want more. I want to win the World Series."
The Braves were regulars in the Fall Classic in the 1990s, winning it all in '95 with a team that was managed by Bobby Cox and included pitchers Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux and John Smoltz and slugging third baseman Chipper Jones, all of them now in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
That remains the franchise's only title in Atlanta. The Braves lost the World Series four other times during that decade, a run of postseason disappointment that marred a momentous streak that grew to 14 straight division titles.
After getting swept in the 1999 World Series by the New York Yankees, the Braves couldn't even get that far in the postseason. Twenty-two years of frustration, 12 playoff appearances that fell short of a pennant.
Finally, it's over.
"We actually did it," said longtime Atlanta first baseman Freddie Freeman, sounding a bit bewildered.
Rosario was among the players acquired in a flurry of deals just before MLB's July 30 trade deadline that rebuilt the Braves' depleted outfield, which lost All-Star Ronald Acuña Jr. to a season-ending knee injury and slugger Marcell Ozuna to a hand injury and legal troubles.
The Braves still found a way to win their fourth straight NL East Division title, got past the higher-seeded Milwaukee Brewers in four games in their NL Division Series, then dispatched the Dodgers, whose 106 regular-season wins were 18 more than Atlanta's total.
"Anything that was thrown at us," Freeman said, "we were able to overcome it."
AP photo by Brynn Anderson / Atlanta Braves left fielder Eddie Rosario kisses his NLCS MVP trophy after the team beat the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday night.Rosario set an Atlanta record and became only the fifth player in MLB history to get 14 hits in a postseason series. He was an easy choice as best in this NLCS.
Spurred on by chants of "Eddie! Eddie! Eddie" from the raucous sellout crowd of more than 43,000, Rosario finished 14-of-25 (.560) against the Dodgers with three homers and nine RBIs.
"We just couldn't figure him out," Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts said.
Will Smith worked a perfect ninth for his fourth save of the postseason after a brilliant relief stint by winner Tyler Matzek, who escaped a huge jam in the seventh by striking out the side.
Rosario's final hit was certainly the biggest of the 30-year-old Puerto Rican's career.
With the score tied at 1 in the bottom of the fourth, Rosario came up after pinch-hitter Ehire Adrianza extended the inning with a two-out double into the right-field corner. Slow-running catcher Travis d'Arnaud was held at third base by coach Ron Washington, surely aware of who was up next.
Rosario got into an extended duel with Walker Buehler, who stepped up to start on three days' rest after ace Max Scherzer wasn't able to go because of a tired arm.
Rosario swung and missed the first two pitches. Then he fouled one off. Then he took a ball. Then he fouled off two more pitches.
Finally, he got one he liked from the Dodgers' 16-game winner - a cutter that Rosario turned into a 105 mph rocket down the right-field line, higher and higher, straight as an arrow until it landed well back into the seats below the Chop House restaurant.
"We got him 0-2 and just couldn't put him away," Roberts said.
Rosario knew it was gone, dancing down the line after delivering a 361-foot finishing shot to a team that had MLB's biggest payroll ($261 million) but came up short in its bid to become the first repeat champion since the Yankees won their third straight title in 2000. After the Dodgers finished one win behind the San Francisco Giants, ending a run of eight straight NL West titles, Los Angeles won the wild-card matchup against the red-hot St. Louis Cardinals in walk-off fashion, then beat the Giants in an NLDS that went the distance.
Saturday's loss ended the Dodgers' run of seven straight wins when facing elimination, a streak that dated to last year.
"We had a tremendous season," Roberts said. "We were two wins away from going to the World Series. I want the guys to be proud of that."
AP photo by John Bazemore / Atlanta Braves catcher Travis d'Arnaud hugs pitcher Will Smith after he closed Game 6 of the NLCS against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday night at Truist Park.The Braves got a stellar performance from their bullpen - including 10 strikeouts - after starter Ian Anderson was lifted for a pinch-hitter in the fourth.
A.J. Minter struck out four batters in two perfect innings. Matzek did the same in a much more tenuous situation, coming on in the seventh with runners at second and third and a run already in after Luke Jackson failed to get an out.
Matzek struck out the side that inning, including Mookie Betts on three straight pitches to strand both runners. The pitcher pumped his fist twice and let out a scream on his way off the mound.
The left-hander returned in the eighth for another perfect inning, including his fourth strikeout, before Smith fanned two more hitters in a 1-2-3 ninth. Matzek has 11 strikeouts with runners in scoring position in the seventh inning or later this postseason.
Not bad for a guy who didn't play at all in 2017 and worked his way to the Braves with two stints in an independent league.
"I was out of baseball in 2017," Matzek said. "Now I'm in the World Series."
The Braves will try to bury their city's reputation for postseason misery across a wide range of sports.
From four World Series losses in the 1990s to the Falcons blowing a 28-3 lead to lose in overtime to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI four years ago, Atlanta again finds itself on the cusp of an extremely rare feat.
The 1995 Braves remain the city's lone team in the four major sports - baseball, football, basketball and hockey - to capture a title. Freeman said after a Game 5 loss that the city's history would remain an issue "until we kill that narrative."
They're four wins from doing just that.