Where Braves Fell Flat Against Dodgers is Clear as Day

All the worried talk about the pitching, and that was far from the Atlanta Braves' biggest issue when they got into the thick of the postseason

The Braves were in a position to advance to the NLCS, but they missed key opportunities | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Just like that. The season is over. The Atlanta Braves fell to the Dodgers 4-1 to seal the deal.

When we'll see them take the field again is anybody's guess, given the elephant in the room behind the scenes.

An unfortunate reality is that this could have gone very differently with a couple of swings of the bat. Following Game 1, the Dodgers were held to three runs or fewer every game. That's winnable.

It didn't matter if it was a bullpen game or a bona fide starter on the mound; the Braves had a chance to win this in four games. You can't get mad at them because they didn't hang on to a 1-0 lead. The bats had to step up at some point.

They managed to get both of their starters for Game 3 and Game 4. Turns out, it didn't matter much.

"The arms just keep coming at you," manager Walt Weiss said. "That's the postseason. You never know what you're going to get. It's very unpredictable."

Relying on wild pitches to score Michael Harris II will only get you so far. Having Harris and Ozzie Albies bat .250 or better isn't going to help much either. Don't like batting average? Don't worry, I have another stat for you. Only those two aforementioned hitters, plus Sean Murphy - yes, Sean Murphy - had an OPS over .600.

“I'm particularly frustrated with myself. I feel like I did nothing to help the team this series," Ronald Acuña Jr. said after the game, via the AJC.

According to OptaStats, the Braves went 1-for-23 with runners in scoring position against the Dodgers. This marked the second-lowest batting average with runners in scoring position in a postseason series in MLB history (minimum 20 at-bats with runners in scoring position), behind only the Dodgers in the 1966 World Series (0-for-22).

That Dodgers team was swept by the Baltimore Orioles, in case you were wondering. Not capitalizing doesn't typically end well.

A swing or two that lands for a base hit changes the entire scope of this series.

"Some guys, you have a lot of unsung heroes a lot of times in the postseason, and sometimes the guys struggle. It's obviously magnified because you're playing under a microscope. But, yeah, I mean, I think that we struggled with runners in scoring position. So did the Dodgers. The games are really tight. I thought we gave them all they could handle, but it's a good team over there."

How they'll address these woes in the offseason is to be determined. What they'll be allowed to do to address these issues in the offseason is another story entirely. That's the weird thing about this loss. It was potentially the end of how we know baseball at the current time, and they went out on a whimper.

Whenever they return, we can still expect them to be competitive. This is a team, on paper, that has the pieces, but something has to be done to help bring that extra spark.

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