Braves squander chance at stress-less doubleheader with Mets

Of the three National League teams competing for postseason berths, the Atlanta Braves had the best chance to clinch their spot on Sunday. All they needed to do was defeat a Kansas City Royals team that had already punched its ticket into the postseason or get a loss from the Arizona Diamondbacks. Neither of those results occurred.

The Diamondbacks crushed the Padres, avoiding the sweep and saving their season with an 11-2 win. The Braves, meanwhile, lost their game against the Kansas City Royals 4-2.

The results unfolding the way that they did make one thing abundantly clear. Monday's doubleheader between the Braves and the New York Mets matters. It was always going to matter for the Mets with Arizona winning, but the Braves had their chance to play without any stress. That is now gone.

For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work on The Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot, our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop between now and the MLB offseason.

Braves inexplicably fail to clinch postseason berth before crucial doubleheader

Everything was favoring the Braves when it came to winning this game and clinching a postseason berth. The Royals scratched starter Cole Ragans who is preparing to start in the postseason for Kansas City and instead turned to Alec Marsh, a right-hander who entered the day with a 4.65 ERA in 25 appearances (24 starts). Kansas City also sat one of its best players, Salvador Perez, for rest purposes.

None of that seemed to matter, though, As Charlie Morton allowed a three-run homer before recording an out. Those three runs proved to be all that Kansas City would need.

The Braves had eight hits, five of which came from Gio Urshela and Michael Harris II. Urshela also homered. Their season-long struggles with runners in scoring position persisted in this game, though, as Atlanta went 1-for-9 in such situations. The duo of Ozzie Albies and Marcell Ozuna going 0-for-9 certainly didn't help.

The Braves remain in the driver's seat even after this loss, but things become a whole lot tighter with a desperate Mets team with just as much to play for coming to town. The Braves have home-field advantage and also have the pitching advantage, but they'll have to use at least one of Spencer Schwellenbach or Chris Sale in the opener as they try to clinch. If the Mets win, there's a good chance they'll have to burn both of those elite arms just to give themselves the best shot to get in.

The Braves could've saved both Schwellenbach and Sale for the postseason had they clinched today, but now, they'll have to play in the Wild Card Series (if they get in at all) without at least one if not both of them. It was a situation that was entirely avoidable had they simply taken care of business against Kansas City, but they failed to do so.

The Braves (and Mets) only need to win one game which eases some of the tension if Atlanta can get the job done in the opener of the doubleheader, but had they simply taken care of business in a game that they really should've won, Monday's games would not matter in the slightest for them.