By: Colin Lacy

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Has the Atlanta Braves season in 2026 been flawless? No. That being said however, most teams in baseball would trade their seasons with the Bravos in a heartbeat.

When you factor in all of the adversity that seemed to be never ending for the franchise, the season has been almost unbelievable.

Think back to the middle of February. Spring training is supposed to be the time of unrealistic optimism, but for Atlanta, it was a time of blow after blow.

Just when camp was beginning, the Braves learned that Jurickson Profar was popped for the second time for the league’s performance enhancing drugs policy and would miss the entire season.

Just days later, Atlanta learned that pitchers Joe Jiminez, Spencer Schwellenbach, Spence Strider all were hit with the injury bug.

Throughout the season there has been numerous impact injuries with AJ Smith-Shawver, Bryce Elder, Strider…again, Reynaldo Lopez just to name a few.

Through all of the injury bugs (almost felt like an infestation), the Braves sat atop the NL East virtually from opening day. The lead ballooned to as many as 10 ½ games in May but had the division at an arm’s length the entire back half of the regular season and wrapped up their seventh NL East title in the last nine years with a September 20^th win over the Astros in Houston.

How did the Braves overcome everything? The old adage of “everyone has to deal with injuries at some point” is true, but the Braves felt like it was a decade worth in one season.

To me, it starts at the top. First year manager Walt Weiss should be heavily in the conversation for Manager of the Year award and was the perfect person in order to keep this team on the same page.

Weiss has shown he has been the perfect combination of old school baseball mind, and the willingness to embrace the new school additions to the game.

While the household names of Matt Olson, Drake Baldwin, and Ronald Acuna Jr (when he’s been healthy), have done their parts to get the Braves to the promise land of the postseason, it’s been the unsung heroes for the Bravos that have made this season possible.

Names like Mauricio Dubon who have done a little bit of everything for Atlanta, Mike Yastremski, Tyler Mahle and others have raised their standard to a new level in 2026 to propel Atlanta to where they wanted to be.

Nobody embodies this more than Martin Perez. How fitting was it that Perez started the game that clinched the NL East title for the Braves.

Perez was a non-roster invitee to Spring Training then was designated for assignment by the club on April 12^th.

Yet not only was it his Sunday September 20^th start that secured the division title for the Braves, a Perez start really kickstarted the pitching resurgence down the back stretch.

Atlanta broke into the month of August with a spot start for Martin Perez that found out he was starting about an hour and a half before first pitch.  How did it kickstart something?

Perez took a no-hitter into the 7^th inning. While I understand that is just one of 162, that is what really started a stretch of impressive starting pitching for Atlanta.

The Braves were plagued by borderline horrendous starting pitching for about a month, but the strong Perez open sparked the pitching staff that was bolstered by the semi-unknown Tyler Mahle at the trade deadline.

While there have been blips on the year for the Braves, they have continued to overcome, continued to fight for the clubhouse, and will enter the postseason as the 3-seed and have to play in the opening round, but who woulda thought that the postseason was in the cards for the Braves after hit after hit (and not in the good way) they have endured thru the season.