The Atlanta Braves are primed for a wild finale to their tumultuous 2024 regular season. A hurricane has thrown a wrench into their final weekend and has made every game more critical than the last. If they were to win and reach the postseason, however, their shot to win it all is as good as anyone's.
MLB insider Buster Olney joined The Steakhouse on Thursday morning to discuss why this is as wide open a postseason as he's ever seen, but also why the Braves could be a team that takes advantage of it.
"In the time I've covered baseball, I've never felt like a postseason is as wide open as this one is going to be," Olney said. "You can chart a reasonable path for 11 of the teams, and we saw this last year with the Texas Rangers and the Arizona Diamondbacks who went from being low seeds to playing each other in the World Series."
Assuming they make the postseason, the Braves have as good a shot as anyone. The Rangers and Diamondbacks are a clear example of things that can go right if the right team gets hot.
"[MLB] teams are conditioned for chaos. Just think about the end of the Rangers' season last year," Olney continued. "11 straight road games before they finally got to play at home, and they went on to win the World Series. That became part of their story, and I think the same thing can happen for the Braves."
The Braves will look to line up their pitching staff for the postseason as best they can, but none of that would matter if they don't win this weekend.
"The focus [for the Braves] is going to be, 'We need to win Friday,'" Olney said about the team's mentality and the prospect of saving their Cy Young candidate for Monday. "When we play on Saturday, we need to win that game. The best way to win their next game is to use Chris Sale... You want to make sure your best player gets the ball as you're going through this fight."
This thing is wide open, and the Braves have a team that nobody would want to face in the postseason. Now, they just need to make it there.