NL East champs again: Braves sweep Phillies for fourth straight title

AP photo by John Bazemore / Atlanta Braves leadoff hitter Jorge Soler is met by teammate Freddie Freeman after hitting a home run in the first inning of Thursday night's home game against the Philadelphia Phillies. The Braves won 5-3 to sweep the three-game series and win the NL East Division for the fourth year in a row.
AP photo by John Bazemore / Atlanta Braves leadoff hitter Jorge Soler is met by teammate Freddie Freeman after hitting a home run in the first inning of Thursday night's home game against the Philadelphia Phillies. The Braves won 5-3 to sweep the three-game series and win the NL East Division for the fourth year in a row.

ATLANTA - The Atlanta Braves have won their division before - many, many times before - but this first-place finish felt a bit different.

More satisfying for sure.

After all, the Braves floundered under .500 for much of the season. They endured devastating injuries and grim legal problems. They had to essentially rebuild their outfield at Major League Baseball's trade deadline just two months ago.

And yet there they were Thursday night, swigging champagne, puffing on cigars and celebrating another National League East championship.

Ian Anderson turned in another dominant pitching performance, Austin Riley and Jorge Soler homered to power the offense, and the Braves clinched their fourth straight division title by completing a sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies at Truist Park with a 5-3 victory.

"We were just trying to hang in there and pull this thing off," Atlanta manager Brian Snitker said. "It's unbelievable what these guys accomplished with everything we went through."

The Braves didn't climb above .500 until Aug. 6, yet they went on to capture their 21st division title - more than any other team - since moving from Milwaukee to Atlanta in 1966.

They'll face their former city in the playoffs when they open a best-of-five NL Division Series against the Brewers on Oct. 8. Milwaukee, the NL Central champ, has home-field advantage as a higher seed.

"It's a great feeling," veteran Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman said. "We had a lot of ups and down, so many things that could have derailed us."

Atlanta's very first hitter got things rolling in the division-clinching triumph. Soler hit the first leadoff homer of his MLB career, going deep for the 26th time this season on a 3-2 pitch from Kyle Gibson (4-6).

Riley, bolstering his improbable NL MVP candidacy, added to the lead in the fourth with his 33rd homer of 2021. He drove in another run with a broken-bat single in the fifth to make it 5-0.

Atlanta second baseman Ozzie Albies, who also figures to be part of the MVP race, threw his support to Riley.

"He's been carrying this team," Albies said of the third baseman. "He did a great, great job. He had a great season."

It was more than enough run support for Anderson (9-5), who appears to be rounding into the sort of form he showed during the 2020 postseason as a rookie.

Anderson pitched six innings of one-hit ball before yielding a two-run homer to Andrew McCutchen in the seventh. A.J. Minter, Luke Jackson and Will Smith worked the final three innings, with Smith breezing through the ninth to earn his 37th save of the year.

In a way, the finish was a bit out of character considering all the obstacles that were thrown Atlanta's way.

Star outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. was lost to a season-ending knee injury, while former ace Mike Soroka didn't make an expected comeback after tearing his Achilles' tendon for the second time. In addition, slugging outfielder Marcell Ozuna - the pot-stirring leader of the Braves' postseason run that ended with Game 7 of last year's NL Championship Series - was arrested after an altercation with his wife in late May and didn't return to the team.

General manger Alex Anthopoulos pulled off a flurry of moves at the deadline, though, assembling an entirely new outfield that included Soler, Adam Duvall and Eddie Rosario.

The Braves spent 126 days without a winning record - the most by a division champ since the 1989 Toronto Blue Jays and fourth most since the divisional era began in 1969, according to Elias Sports. They finally got hot to take control in one of the majors' weakest divisions.

Atlanta gained sole possession of the NL East lead for the first time on Aug. 15 while on a road trip in which it went 9-0, and it never relinquished the top spot.

Philadelphia made a late surge, getting within 1 1/2 games of the lead last weekend, but the Braves snuffed out their rivals' hopes with a stifling run of starting pitching by Charlie Morton, Max Fried and Anderson. In the three-game series, the trio of Atlanta starting pitchers combined to allow just 10 hits and three earned runs in 20 innings.

"It's a really empty feeling," Phillies manager Joe Girardi said. "It stinks. It hurts."

When Smith struck out Ronald Torreyes for the final out, it was time for another Atlanta celebration before a near-sellout crowd of 38,235.

The Phillies, meanwhile, have now gone a full decade without a postseason appearance. They haven't been back since capturing the last of five straight NL East titles in 2011.

"We've got to get better," Girardi said. "That's the bottom line. We need to break this."

The Phillies' big boppers, Bryce Harper and J.T. Realmuto, struggled mightily in the series. The Nos. 3-4 hitters in the lineup were a combined 0-for-22 until Realmuto homered with two outs in the eighth off Jackson. Harper's struggles in the three biggest games of the season may have hurt his chances in the wide-open NL MVP race.

The Braves, though, have three of the top five among the NL's RBI leaders.

Riley drove in two more runs to give him 105 this season, while Albies had a run-scoring triple that pushed his total to 104. Duvall leads the league with 112 RBIs, with 44 coming since he was acquired from the Miami Marlins just ahead of the trade deadline, bringing him back to his former team.

The only other NL players with at least 100 RBIs going into Thursday's games were the St. Louis Cardinals' Nolan Arenado (105) and the San Diego Padres' Manny Machado (103).

The Braves got a scare in the seventh when Freeman was plunked just above the left elbow with a 100 mph fastball from José Alvarado. Freeman needed a few minutes to regain feeling in his arm and hand, but he was able to stay in the game.

Atlanta will host a weekend series against the New York Mets that will serve as a final tuneup for the playoffs. Braves right-hander Huascar Ynoa (4-5, 3.98 ERA) is set to make his last start of the regular season Friday night.

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