Remember when the Braves winning division titles was so yesterday?

Well, when they clinched the National League East Sunday, it had been several yesterdays ago. Try eight years worth: The Braves hadn’t won a division title since 2005. It had been that long since the Braves could go into the final week of the season without being preoccupied with a team ahead of them or behind them in the standings.

A few other reminders of how long it had been.

• After Washington lost at home to Florida 4-2 -- clinching the East for the Braves even before their 5-2 win over the Chicago Cubs that would follow – Fox Sports South showed old video footage of the 2005 celebration. It included rookies Jeff Francoeur and Brian McCann, as well as Marcus Giles.

• The Braves’ current roster has only two players remaining from that team – McCann, who was 21 years old, and pitcher Tim Hudson, who was in his first season as a Brave after being acquired from Oakland. But Hudson is out for the season with a fractured ankle.

•  The third base coach was Fredi Gonzalez. The manager, obviously: Bobby Cox.

•  The starting pitching rotation: Hudson, John Smoltz, Horacio Ramirez and some combination of Kyle Davies, John Thompson and remnants of Mike Hampton.

•  The closer: Chris Reitsma.

•  Offensively, the team was led by Chipper Jones (.296, 21 homers, 72 RBI in 109 games), Andruw Jones (51 homers, 128 RBI), Rafael Furcal (.284, 48 stolen bases), Adam LaRoche (,259, 20, 78) and Giles (.291, 63 RBI).

•  Those Braves trailed Washington by 5½ games on July 3 but then won six straight en route to an 18-8 July, opened a seven-game lead on Sept. 11 and eventually won it by two games over Philadelphia.

• McCann played 59 games after a midseason call-up, went 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI-single in his debut, homered in his second game, hit .278 and became Smoltz’s personal catcher. He would later homer in  his first postseason at-bat.

October didn’t go well. The Braves lost a division series for the fourth straight season, three games to one to Houston. Then they went four straight years without a playoff appearance until reaching as a wild card in 2010.

This will be the third playoff appearance in four years. The last time they won a postseason series: 2001.

How will this one end?

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