By: TJ Hartnett

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

The Atlanta Braves won their third straight NL East title and are into the playoffs.

Now this isn’t an unexpected development, as the Braves were the favorites to win the East going into the season, but in practice it took a lot more work than many would have thought. The road to the playoffs was a different route than it maybe should have been.

In any case, the Braves will face off against the seventh seeded team at Truist Park, with ace Max Fried taking the mound, and thank god for that.

Fried, who will be the wily veteran of the team’s postseason rotation with about a year and a half of being a rotation mainstay under his belt, left his last start of the regular season after the first inning because he twisted his ankle fielding a ball.

If you happened to feel a shockwave reverberated anywhere in the Southeastern United States last week, that was the collective gasp/groan/heart palpitations of the entirety of Braves Country.

Mercifully, he was only taken out due to precautionary measures (the Braves had clinched the East already). The Braves Cy Young candidate, the undefeated Fried will prevent Brian Snitker from having to run a rookie with only five career starts out for Game 1 of the playoffs.

That being said, let’s look at the rest of the rotation.

For four innings a week and a half ago, it seemed like Cole Hamels would be taking the mound for a postseason start, but after making his one and only appearance for the Braves this season, Hamels went right back to the Injured List and that was that.

So instead, Ian Anderson is likely to start Game 2. He’s looked great in his short time in Atlanta and there’s nothing inherently concerning about having someone that inexperienced start in a playoff game, but we also can’t pretend that we know what to expect.

And really any concern about Anderson starting is compacted with the fact that Game 3, if necessary, will be started by Kyle Wright. He’s been consistently good for fewer starts (three, to be exact).

One of those two young pitchers would probably not garner much of a second thought as the postseason begins but the fact that the Braves are relying on two such pitchers along with their ace barely being out of his own rookie season and nary a veteran in sight is cause for concern.

Sure, the pitchers all have excellent stuff and are capable of shutting down any other team’s offense but with such small sample sizes, they’re simply still unknown quantities.

Which means Atlanta will be leaning on its historically good offense, its exceptional defense, and it’s excellent bullpen to help them win their first postseason series in nearly two decades and advance deep into the playoffs.

And those elements are all terrific. If Atlanta had made it through 2020 with the rotation they’d hoped for way back in February, they might be unstoppable favorites to win the World Series.

As it stands right now, they’re a team with question marks at the most important place when it comes to the postseason.