Freddie Freeman has spent his whole profession in an Atlanta Braves uniform and has seen loads of ups and downs. As lots of his teammates have been traded away to facilitate the rebuild, Freeman remained and can now play within the World Series for the primary time in his profession.
Freeman acquired off to an uncharacteristically sluggish begin in 2021. Whether or not that had something to do along with his nonetheless undecided contract scenario we are going to seemingly by no means know. He settled in and returned to MVP type and was key to the Braves late surge.
Yeah, this feels fairly good. I feel this is perhaps the definition of pure pleasure,” Freeman mentioned after the sport. “It truly is. I don’t actually know the right way to really feel. Normally we’re sitting in our locker and simply enthusiastic about the entire season and preparing for subsequent yr, and we really did it.”
“Going from 97 losses six years in the past to doing this, it’s particular, and to lose, for my part, one of the best participant within the Nationwide League and we’re up right here going to the World Collection with out Ronald Acuña Jr., It’s wonderful what this staff did.”
The Braves fell to a season-worst 5 video games beneath .500 on June 16 and have been eight video games behind within the division. They didn’t climb above .500 till August a few weeks after Alex Anthopoulos acquired reinforcements on the commerce deadline. There was discuss of promoting going into the All-Star break however that wasn’t one thing that Atlanta’s entrance workplace ever thought of.
“To choose up what he did earlier than the commerce deadline too, getting Joc, and simply letting us know that we consider in you, and dropping Ronald on the All-Star break after which what he did getting Eddie, getting Adam again, getting Richard who helped us tremendously, Jorge, I must say sure,” Freeman mentioned when requested concerning the deadline additions. “I imply, we needed to choose up Ronald, and it seems like everybody on the staff picked it up within the second half. It’s two totally different groups, actually, from the primary half to the second half, when you actually have a look at it.”
One factor that this season introduced the staff was resiliency. There have been loads of bumps within the street from accidents to Ronald Acuña Jr. and Mike Soroka to guys merely getting off to a sluggish begin. At occasions they scored runs however have been unable to comprise different groups. Different occasions they acquired stable pitching however couldn’t discover a huge hit. Freeman mentioned that by way of all of it, they by no means misplaced confidence.
“I simply assume it’s due to what we overcame this yr,” Freeman mentioned. “We now have had like 40-foot potholes that we’ve hit, like humongous pace bumps, every part you may probably see in a street we hit it, and we nonetheless by some means overcame all that. I feel that’s what this staff has is something we acquired thrown at us, we overcame it.”
“You noticed it. We misplaced Jorge, our leadoff hitter the final three weeks of the season proper earlier than the collection, and we’re identical to, okay, right here we go, let’s simply determine this out and maintain going and I feel that’s the factor,” Freeman added. “Everybody simply appears at general file. It’s simply been how this staff has performed within the second half is what made us really feel this assured about ourselves and what we’ve overcome. It’s simply sort of the entire thing that put all of it collectively to make us really feel the way in which we really feel.”
