Riding a streak of seven straight playoff appearances, highlighted by their 2021 World Series championship, the Atlanta Braves opened spring training camp with hopes of returning to the top of the National League East — and winning what would be only the third World Series title since the franchise moved to Atlanta in 1966.

But just two days into spring training camp, and four days before their first scheduled full-squad workout, the Braves are already dealing with bad news in their quest to get back to the Fall Classic.

The Braves finished second, six games behind the Philadelphia Phillies in the 2024 NL East race. Atlanta then fell quickly to the San Diego Padres in the playoffs’ Wild Card round, dropping the first two games of what was set as a best-of-three series. The defeat came after six consecutive first-place finishes in the division, which nonetheless fell short of the Braves record of 11 straight NL East titles from 1995 through 2005.

Braves Looking for Only 5th World Series Ring Ever

Even during that extraordinary streak, however, the Braves advanced to the World Series just three times, winning only once in 1995. Since adopting the name “Braves” in 1912, the franchise has only four World Series trophies on its mantelpiece. In their previous location, Milwaukee, they won the World Series in 1957, defeating the New York Yankees in seven games.

Way back in 1914, the Boston Braves won their lone World Series before relocating to Milwaukee in 1953. The 1914 season was the year of the “Miracle Braves,” when the Boston National Leaguers lost 18 of their first 22 games and sat in eighth-place in eight-team league on July 17 when they suddenly turned their fortunes around. They won 23 of their next 27 games (with one tie) and continued to roll until they took over first place for good on September 5.

In that era, long before MLB instituted its league playoffs, the Braves went straight to the World Series where they swept the American League champion Philadelphia Athletics in four games.

The current Atlanta Braves, 111 years after the Boston “miracle,” hope to return to the franchise’s former glory — but at least at the start of the season they will have to do it without the services of four-time All-Star and 2023 NL MVP Ronald Acuña Jr., as well as righty mound ace Spencer Strider who remains MLB’s last 20-game winner, with a 20-5 record in 2023.

But in 2024 Strider made only one start before his season ended with a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. The injury required surgery, and as the 2025 season gets underway Strider will continue to rehab the injury as he recovers from the elbow procedure.

Strider, Acuña Jr. Will Not Be Healthy for Opening Day

As for Acuña, the 2018 NL Rookie of the Year who in 2023 posted an NL-best 1.012 OPS, he tore the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his left knee on May 26, then had surgery to repair the knee in June 4. It was the second time in his seven-season career that he tore the same ligament, the first happening on July 10, 2021.

Acuña did not come back until 20 games into the 2022 season. This time, he entered 2025 spring training saying he feels 90 to 95 percent recovered. But he will not be back by opening day on March 27 in San Diego.

“Just kind of seemed like we never really got our head fully above water,” Braves lefty and reigning NL Cy Young winner Chris Sale said, reflecting on the 2024 campaign at the outset of Braves training camp. “It just seemed like one thing after the other. A lot of it was just kind of bad luck or bad timing.”

Sale himself, in his first season with the Braves, had his first predominantly healthy season since 2017, his first year with the Boston Red Sox.

Jonathan Vankin JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist and writer who now covers baseball and other sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Press Association awards for sports feature writing. Vankin is also the author of five nonfiction books on a variety of topics, as well as nine graphic novels including most recently “Last of the Gladiators” published by Dynamite Entertainment. More about Jonathan Vankin