HOUSTON — Max Fried was the Braves.
He did not look good in his Game 2 start, and two batters into Game 6 he was on the ground — dazed, embarrassed and possibly injured.
But these Braves and their players have shown they will get off the canvas. They were five games under .500 in mid-June, their best player (Ronald Acuna Jr.) was lost for the season in early July, they still hadn’t cleared breakeven seven days into August and a four-game losing streak three weeks into September made them vulnerable to missing the playoffs.
The Braves, though, won the bedraggled NL East, played spectacularly in October and in the only 2021 game that will be played in November, Fried rose. Literally and metaphorically.
“It hurt at first, but I got up and I knew I was good to keep going,” Fried said.
The Braves’ best lefty starter since Tom Glavine did what Glavine did 26 years ago — he pitched brilliantly in a closeout Game 6. So for just the second time since the franchise moved to Atlanta — 1995 and now 2021 — the Braves are champions.
Fried held the Astros to four singles over six shutout innings. Jorge Soler hit a three-run homer onto Crawford Street, Dansby Swanson a two-run shot and Freddie Freeman a solo blast. The final was 7-0 and four games to two; the 117th World Series serving as a platform for one franchise’s stick-to-itiveness.
“They never gave up on themselves,” said manager Brian Snitker, who could have the same applied to him, since he had been in the organization nearly four decades before getting his major league managing chance in 2016.
Still, he was guiding one of the more disappointing teams in the majors when Acuna blew out a knee on July 10. The Mets led the NL East, but hadn’t pulled away. So Atlanta president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos refused to surrender. He orchestrated trades for four bats that hardly caused the deadline cacophony of Joey Gallo, Javier Baez or Trea Turner.
But Soler, Adam Duvall, Joc Pederson and Eddie Rosario were essential to the Braves winning the NL East for a fourth straight year. Each hit three homers this postseason, contributing huge moments to help the Braves, whose 88 wins were the fewest in the 10-team playoff field, take down the 95-win Brewers, 106-win Dodgers and 95-win Astros. Soler, whose 466-foot shot in the third began the Game 6 assault, was named World Series MVP.
The Mets? They are now the only NL East team that has not won a World Series in the 2000s. To make division inroads, they will have to contend with a champion who will be getting Acuna back. They will be competing with an organization that kept facing impediments — starter Mike Soroka never pitched this year after re-tearing his Achilles, for example — and kept finding solutions.
“We had a little bit of a chip on our shoulders because we knew we were good and people were saying we weren’t,” said key setup man Tyler Matzek.
The Braves were so rotation-depleted, to a large degree after losing Game 1 starter Charlie Morton to a fractured fibula, that they were forced into consecutive bullpen endeavors in Games 4 and 5 started by the anonymous, inexperienced duo of Dylan Lee and Tucker Davidson. The Astros routed the Braves in Game 5 to force the series back to Houston.
After starter Luis Garcia, on three days’ rest, had a dominant 1-2-3 top of the first, Jose Altuve led off the bottom half with an infield single. Michael Brantley then grounded a ball wide of first. Fried got a late break to cover. Freeman’s toss was a little behind the starter. Fried caught it awkwardly, his leg exposed and Brantley came down full force with his left foot on Fried’s right ankle. It prevented Fried’s foot from ever reaching the bag. Brantley was safe. First and second, no out.
But how was Fried? He had been terrific in his first two postseason starts and beat up in his last two, including World Series Game 2 when Houston strafed him for six runs in five innings. Had he hit a wall? Was he even more compromised now with his ankle stepped on?
“It kind of pissed [Fried] off and that was good for him,” Matzek said.
It did rev up Fried. He dominated the next three batters, striking out two, including finishing off Yuli Gurriel at 98.4 mph, his best velocity this year. That runner on second in the first represented the best Houston managed. Fried never walked a batter, whiffed six and conjured Glavine, who in Game 6 in 1995 one-hit Cleveland to give the Braves the first — and until Tuesday night the only — Atlanta championship in the four major sports.
“Today was the end of my tank,” Fried said about finding an extra gear on Nov. 2.
Fried went down two batters into the bottom of the first Tuesday. He was a 2021 Brave, though. He rose — so did the new champions.