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ATLANTA – Ian Anderson put in another dominant pitcher’s performance, Jorge Soler and Austin Riley hit a homerun and the Braves won their fourth straight NL East title by completing a sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies with a 5-3 victory on Thursday. evening.
After a checkered season marred by injuries and legal woes but reinforced by a flurry of moves by the trade deadline, the Braves won their 21st division title since moving from Milwaukee to Atlanta in 1966.
They will face their old city in the playoffs when they open the best of five National League division series to the center-champion Brewers on October 8.
Atlanta’s first-ever hitter got the ball rolling in the division’s triumph. Soler hit the first home run of his career, going deep on a Kyle Gibson (4-6) 3-2 pitch for his 26th home run of the season.
Riley, bolstering his unlikely MVP candidacy, added to the lead with his 33rd homer in the fourth. He had another run with a single with a broken bat in the fifth to extend the lead to 5-0.
That was more than enough for Anderson (9-5), who appears to be in the kind of form he showed in the 2020 playoffs as a rookie.
Anderson pitched six scoreless innings with a hit before ceding a two-run homerun to Andrew McCutchen in the seventh. AJ Minter, Luke Jackson and Will Smith worked the last three innings, Smith winning his 37th save.
The Braves endured many obstacles on their way to another division title.
Star outfielder Ronald Acuna Jr. was lost to a season-ending knee injury, while former ace Mike Soroka did not make an expected comeback after tearing his sinew. ‘Achilles for the second time.
Additionally, outfielder Marcell Ozuna – the Braves’ runner-up in last year’s NL Championship Series Game 7 – was arrested after an altercation with his wife in late May and did not return to the squad. .
The Braves didn’t even have a winning record this year until the start of August. According to ESPN Stats & Information research, they went 126 days without a winning record, the fourth-biggest division winner since 1969 and the most since the 1989 Blue Jays.
GM Alex Anthopoulos managed a flurry of moves on the trade deadline, assembling an all-new outfield that included Soler and Adam Duvall.
The Braves went on fire in the second half of the season to win one of the majors’ weakest divisions. They took exclusive possession of the NL East lead for the first time on August 15 when they were in the middle of a 9-0 road trip and never gave up on top spot.
Philadelphia made a late comeback, moving up a game and a half ahead last weekend.
But Atlanta dashed the Phillies’ hopes with a stifling run of starting pitchers from Charlie Morton, Max Fried and Anderson. In the series, they combined to allow just 10 hits and three earned runs in 20 innings.
When Smith struck out Ronald Torreyes for the final elimination, it was time for another celebration in front of a near-full crowd of 38,235.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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