“In the home half of the fourth, though, the scorching Eddie Rosario hit a two-out, three-run homer off Los Angeles starter Walker Buehler to give Atlanta a 4-1 lead and change the tenor of Game 6. The home run was Rosario’s 14th hit of the 2021 NLCS, which ties the all-time record for most hits in a postseason series.”


My addition:

Each of those other guys did it in a seven-game series. Rosario is the only one to do it in six. The others had at least 28 at bats and as many as 34, while Rosario needed only 25.

The Braves seem overmatched, but then again they have seemed overmatched in every series. Hell, they seemed overmatched in their own division when they started the season 37-41 and were in fourth place out of five teams in baseball’s weakest division. It really looked bleak when they lost their best hitter four games later. Acuna had been the cornerstone of their offense in that first half, and appeared on his way to a 50-homer season. But they actually did better without him, and here they are, so you may not want to bet against them.

Credit their pitching staff with that amazing second half. The Braves allowed 4.5 runs per game before the break, 3.5 after. In theory, that’s the difference between a .500 team and a .620 team – therefore worth about .120 in the ol’ W-L pct, and that theory held up well. They were .494 before the break, .611 after (.117 difference). The biggest improvement came from Max Fried, who had a 4.71 ERA in the first half, 1.74 in the second.