How fast the mighty fall, and timely, too. The Houston Astros' seven-year streak of reaching the ALCS ended the same night that the Atlanta Braves' six-year streak of reaching the NLDS did the same, and each in an unceremonious sweep—at least, as much as a sweep can be a sweep in a three-game postseason series. At the very least, the Milwaukee Brewers spared us an extra day without any postseason baseball by forcing a Game 3 against the Mets.
No sensible person will cry about these developments. The Astros are the Astros, and the Braves were a dead team walking even entering the playoffs; better they just be put out of their misery. Other than the overarching sentiment towards both teams' failings, conflating them is a bit misleading. The postseason record that the Astros strung together might be distasteful, but has to garner some level of respect: No other team has managed it. Meanwhile, "reaching the NLDS" can sound impressive when phrased that way, but even in the expanded playoffs, half the teams that reach a Divisional Series do it through the regular season.
That's how it has been for the Braves. The only year they made it to the NLDS through a Wild Card round was 2020, and they won that one, for a 1-0 record. Across the five other years, they have had a 1-4 Division Series record. The one year they won, they made it to the World Series; the past two years that they've lost, it's been to the Philadelphia Phillies. Throw all those facts together, and you could have cooked up a thesis about a first-round bye being disadvantageous, as it made better regular-season teams sit on their asses for a round while Wild Card teams could build up some nebulous concept of momentum through adversity. Well, the Braves got their shot to prove that thesis and failed; as it is famously known, one must actually win a Wild Card series to get a chance at the Division Series. Perhaps there is some benefit to being a healthier, better team.
Which is another point of divergence: Unlike the Astros, the zombified Braves were not favored in their series. They qualified through a somewhat fraudulent double-header, and faced the Padres, who came disconcertingly close to stealing the NL West from the Dodgers. If one is discussing randomness in playoff series, the greatest power a team can have is that of narrative. For the worse team, a three-game series should have been a godsend—the "gutty, gritty" (quoth Michael Kay) Detroit Tigers swept the Astros with Tarik Skubal and a bunch of bullpen arms—but while the Braves were no titans, they also made for poor underdogs. Accordingly, Max Fried got infield-singled to death and was pulled after two innings; the Braves made a feint toward a comeback and then lost by one run.
For the common fan, there was nothing particularly heartbreaking or interesting to the Braves finally rolling over and dying. But we can still be thankful for it! The Padres' progression into the next round means that we are gifted a five-game series between them and the not-quite-100-win Dodgers. The Braves and their past couple of years can sit down; the Dodgers' stalwarts are the poster boys of postseason choking. The Padres led the regular-season matchup, 8-5. Something is certainly primed to happen, perhaps with more discourse about the actual or theoretical benefits of a first-round bye, but out of respect for the Betts-Ohtani-Freeman trio, I shan't be putting the worst-case scenario in writing.
