If you had told me before the season started that the Atlanta Braves would go to Citi Field and Progressive Park for a two-city road trip and go 5-1 over that stretch, I would’ve gladly taken that and figured that this would’ve been just another one of those stretches that you need to go on if you want to be taken seriously as a Postseason contender.

Instead, this ended up being less of a warning shot to the rest of baseball and more of a reminder to both the fanbase and the team itself of what could’ve been for this team had they found a way to get clicking much, much earlier than here in mid-August. The season is still lost but it’s still nice to have stretches of this where the team is actually enjoyable to watch for a change. Who knows how long it’ll last but let’s take look back at how things went for the Braves in Cleveland this weekend.

Friday, August 15

Braves 2, Guardians 0

I think Hurston Waldrep might be here to stay, y’all. After being called upon to pitch during the Sunday portion of the Speedway Classic, he followed that up with a strong start against the Marlins a week later. Six days after that outing, Waldrep found himself on the mound against Cleveland looking to make it three positive appearance in a row and boy did he ever pull that off. He pitched into a sixth inning for the third time (he’s made three big league appearances so far) and this was the strongest outing of he bunch. He struck out seven Guardians batters while only giving up two hits and two walks.

That’s it and that’s all — Cleveland stayed off the scoreboard in this one. In fact, the Braves kept Cleveland off of the scoreboard for the entire game as Tyler Kinley, Daysbel Hernández and Raisel Iglesias locked things down in order to make sure that the two runs Atlanta scored ended up holding up. The two runs came from an RBI walk from Nacho Alvarez Jr. in the first inning and then Michael Harris II kept his streak of multi-hit games going with a ninth-inning RBI liner that gave the Braves the insurance run they needed to make sure that the great pitching on the night held up.

Saturday, August 16

Braves 10, Guardians 1

Just like The Rock in 1999, the Braves laid the smackdown on the Guardians in this one. Just like Hurston Waldrep has basically pitched his way into sticking around, Joey Wentz has done the same. Outside of a couple wobbly starts against the Brewers and the Rangers, Wentz has been pretty consistent since making his return to the organization that drafted him. This time, Wentz went six innings while only giving up the single run that the Guardians would score on the night. Wentz’s only real mistake was leaving a fastball right down the middle for Brayan Rocchio to crush but outside of that, Wentz was great. Hunter Straton even came in and earned himself a three-inning save after he tossed a trio of scoreless innings to preserve both the victory and a night of rest for the majority of the bullpen.

The only starters who didn’t get hits for Atlanta in this one were Jurickson Profar (who still walked twice) and Ozzie Albies (who struck out twice). Everybody else got at least one hit. Ronald Acuña Jr., Marcell Ozuna and Michael Harris II both had three hits (and this made it eight games in a row for Money Mike when it came to consecutive multi-hit games) and the bottom of the order had a fantastic night as Nacho Alvarez Jr. and Nick Alen each had three hits. As such, the hit parade for Atlanta resulted in ten runs and a dominant victory for the Braves in order to clinch the series win.

Sunday, August 17

Braves 5, Guardians 4

It took 20 innings but Cleveland’s lineup (outside of the consistently consistent Steven Kwan) finally showed signs of some sort of life at the plate. Erick Fedde’s turn to eat innings came around and he was only able to crunch four of those innings in this one. The Guardians made Fedde throw 92 pitches over those four innings and collected six hits and three walks in the process. Cleveland’s first run came in bizarre fashion in the third inning after Jurickson Profar managed to bobble a sacrifice fly. Shortly after that, Bo Naylor hit an RBI double to put Cleveland in front. In the next frame, Daniel Schneemann hit a line drive to right center that eluded a diving attempt from Ronald Acuña Jr. and went all the way to the wall for a two-out triple. For the first time all series, the Guardians had a foothold in the proceedings.

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It didn’t last long. It only two two innings for the Braves to get all of those runs back in order to retake the lead. Ozzie Albies came through with a huge bases-loaded looper to bring Atlanta to within one run in the fifth inning. Then the sixth inning rolled around and the Braves powered their way in front thanks to a double from Nacho Alvarez Jr. being cashed in by a homer from Jurickson Profar that put Atlanta back in front. Profar also made up for that mind-boggling error earlier on by making a crucial diving catch in the ninth inning. Welcome to the Jurickson Profar Experience, y’all.

From Profar’s homer onward, we got an intense pitchers duel as both bullpens were looking to make sure the other team remained quiet. In the end, the combination of Aaron Bummer, Dylan Lee, Pierce Johnson and Raisel Iglesias ended up being an effective one, as they carried the Braves home with a road sweep at the expense of the Guardians.

For the first time all season, the Braves have won five in a row. In fact, dating back to the long series against the Marlins last week, they’ve won nine of their last 11 games. They’ve won four of their last five series with the only blemish being a sweep at the hands of the Milwaukee Brewers. The Brewers have only just now finally lost a game since then (but boy did they not go down quietly about it) but lowkey, the Braves were actually pretty competitive in that series as they lost one of those games by only one run and another by two. It’s safe to say that this is the best stretch of the season for the Braves and it’s not even close to think about another stretch in comparison as far as the 2025 season is concerned.

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Despite the great run of form, the Braves are still in a lovely position as far as next year’s Draft Lottery is concerned. Even though their odds of picking up the first overall pick have been slashed significantly due to this current run of great form, the Braves are still currently have the fourth-highest odds of winning the lottery. With that being said, there’s not much room separating them from teams like the Marlins, Giants and Diamondbacks who are on the fringe with single-digit percentage odds of winning the Lottery. If Atlanta keeps this going, they really might play themselves back into mediocre draft position, which wouldn’t be ideal but also this good run of form is good for my mental health as a fan of this team who watches them every single night, so I’m not going to complain too much. Your mileage may vary.

With the offense continuing to show sustained signs of life and the pitching staff faring just well enough to make sure a lot of these offensive performances don’t go up in smoke, this has actually been very encouraging to see from the Braves lately. It may have taken them an age and a half but the lineup is starting to approach something that we expected from them for most of the season. Sometimes it’s just fun to enjoy the ride and right now, the Braves are taking us for a smooth ride instead of a bumpy one like usual. Long may it continue — please!