World Series 2021 – How champion Atlanta Braves found their swagger after losing Ronald Acuña Jr.

HOUSTON — In the early hours of July 11, a small group gathered in a ballroom at the Ritz Carlton Key Biscayne hotel in Miami for what felt like a wake. Over the previous 3 ½ months, the Atlanta Braves, a team that entered the 2021 season with legitimate championship aspirations, had bumbled their way to a 44-44 record. The best thing about the Braves was their luminescent 23-year-old center fielder, Ronald Acuña Jr. And there he sat in the expansive room, his expression dour, his affect flat, his right anterior cruciate ligament torn.

The Braves didn’t want him to be alone, only a few hours after his knee buckled on the warning track when he attempted an acrobatic catch. Braves manager Brian Snitker was there. His bench coach, Walt Weiss, joined him. Freddie Freeman showed up. Ozzie Albies swung by to offer support to his good friend with whom he’d made a pact: They would both sign long-term contract extensions with Atlanta and bring a city with a tortured sporting past another World Series title.

Even for a sports town that has been through some grueling losses, this felt like too much. A year after the team blew a 3-1 lead in the National League Championship Series, they lost the National League MVP favorite in July. The season suddenly seemed over barely at the halfway point, waylaid by a 1 ¼-inch-long, half-inch-wide band of tissue. Atlanta Atlanta-ing, again, as always.

“All those thoughts started to creep in,” Weiss says. “Like a ‘we’ll-get-’em-next-year’ type of thing. Nobody was saying that. But those thoughts creep in. It’s like, OK, this is the final straw. We’ve really been struggling, and now we just lost one of the best players in baseball.”

Around baseball that night, executives reacted to the news of Acuña’s torn ACL by studying the Braves’ roster. The trade deadline was less than three weeks…