Braves need to show acclaimed resilience now more than ever

The champagne and beer were surely being prepared. Plastic sheeting would’ve soon enveloped the Braves’ clubhouse. A trip to stunning Southern California with the opportunity of a lifetime was merely six outs away.

This had the makings of the Braves’ first postseason series victory since the 2021 World Series. They took a 3-1 lead into the eighth with their ace lefty reliever Dylan Lee on the mound. This is how manager Walt Weiss would’ve drawn it up.

Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper, two longtime opponents for this franchise, then smacked consecutive homers off Lee, who’d surrendered three long balls the entire regular season.

Those are the unfortunate happenings that make the postseason so challenging to predict. The game wound up in extras, when Alec Bohm’s solo shot off Didier Fuentes gave the Phillies their first lead since the first inning. The Braves left two stranded in the bottom of the 10th, and misery ensued.

Once-jubilant vibes had transformed into those of a funeral.

The Wild Card series is 1-1 with a deciding Game 3 looming at Truist Park on Thursday. But the Braves’ past and present leaves supporters skeptical that this ends with a trip to Los Angeles later this week.

This was a defeat worthy of nausea. It’s a cousin of the 2019 National League Division Series Game 4 defeat in which the Braves were just short (had Freddie Freeman been an inch taller, perhaps he snags that Yadier Molina liner). It wasn’t as abrupt as the Game 5 loss that followed, when the Braves were down 10-0 in the first inning at home, but at least that agony left no room for hope.

Indeed, the Braves have had their share of October horrors. That’s acknowledged even with the 2021 miracle in hand. Two of their latest three eliminations have come against these very Phillies. So it’s unsurprising that the fan base has gone into dismay. But it’s the current outlook, not any history, that creates cause for concern.

The Braves entered Wednesday with an upper hand. They left the day having been smacked in the face and staring at a lopsided on-paper pitching matchup that’ll feature Grant Holmes (or an opener) against one of the Phillies’ high-priced righties, Aaron Nola or Zack Wheeler. The Phillies haven’t announced their plans, but it seems possible the Braves will see both pitchers regardless of who starts.

“Obviously it’s win and move on or lose and go home,” Braves first baseman Matt Olson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “You play the game the same way. You prepare, you get ready – pretty sure it’s going to be Wheeler, so you get ready for Wheeler, you go out and you play your ass off.”

All that talk for months about how resilient these Braves are will be put to the ultimate test. They’ll need to rebound from a gruesome defeat again if they want a shot at the two-time reigning champion Dodgers.

This is what those thrilling wins in the spring and summer are preparing you for. The Braves have lauded their own mental fortitude the entire season. They’ll need it.

“I feel like we get punched in the mouth a lot and we continue to find a way to get it done,” third baseman Austin Riley told The AJC. “We had opportunities today and it didn’t go our way. We have one more and I’m super confident playing in our home stadium with our fans.”

Those months of trials lead to Game 3. If the Braves are truly the team that always finds a way, they’ll solve Thursday’s riddle.

The Braves captured 42 comeback wins. They had 23 last-at-bat wins. They had nine walk-off victories. They were 44-34 in games within two runs. They went 12-4 in games tied after eight innings. They scored 191 runs from the eighth inning on in the regular season, which led the majors. They led MLB in slugging (.467), OPS (.807) and homers (54) during that time.

Of course, that didn’t help them Wednesday. They scored twice in the seventh, then saw the Phillies come through with the hits they couldn’t. But in search of optimism, the Braves’ resilience – and attitude – has been a consistent bright spot. And in pressure-packed moments like Thursday, one shouldn’t dismiss intangibles.

“It sucked that we didn’t get the result we wanted (Wednesday), but we ended up fighting until the last pitch,” left fielder Mauricio Dubon told The AJC. “This is the season. You win or go home.”

The Braves never had a losing streak longer than four, and they didn’t suffer that many consecutive losses from July onward. The Phillies, meanwhile, didn’t avoid such lulls, which is why this series is being played in Atlanta. But they showed a lot of guts in rebounding from their own brutal loss a day earlier.