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Atlanta Braves right fielder Ronald Acuna Jr. celebrates with shortstop Mauricio Dubon after the game against the Houston Astros at Daikin Park on\u00a0Sep 18, 2026.\u00a0\u2014 Reuters<\/p>\n
HOUSTON: The Atlanta Braves secured a place in the MLB playoffs with a 6-2 victory over the Houston Astros here at Daikin Park on Friday, although their celebrations were deliberately low-key.<\/p>\n
The win guaranteed the Braves at least an National League wild-card spot and reduced their magic number to three for clinching the NL East. Atlanta is now targeting its seventh division title in nine years.<\/p>\n
Rather than a huge celebration, the players shared a simple champagne toast before turning their attention to the remaining games.<\/p>\n
“We’ve got our eyes on bigger and better things,” outfielder Michael Harris II said. <\/p>\n
“We’re trying to win the East. So, got to go out there and do what we know we can do, and hopefully, we can celebrate big for that.”<\/p>\n
First-year manager Walt Weiss also stressed that the team wanted to achieve more.<\/p>\n
“Everything you get in this league is earned,” Weiss said. “I’ve said it a few times this year, but great group, what they’ve overcome this year, and hopefully some bigger celebrations ahead.”<\/p>\n
Harris, Ronald Acuna Jr. and Matt Olson each hit a two-run home run as Atlanta bounced back from losing two of three games against the Chicago Cubs earlier this week.<\/p>\n
The Braves moved five games clear of the Philadelphia Phillies, who lost 6-3 to the New York Mets, with eight games remaining.<\/p>\n
Atlanta’s return to the postseason comes after a disappointing 2025 campaign, when they finished fourth in the NL East with a 76-86 record.<\/p>\n
Friday’s victory also gave the Braves 90 wins, their fifth such season in the past eight full campaigns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Atlanta Braves right fielder Ronald Acuna Jr. celebrates with shortstop Mauricio Dubon after the game against the Houston…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":808925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[46,5,192,54,2328,2304,4,2305,2303,7439],"class_list":["post-808924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb-postseason","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-baseball","tag-braves","tag-houston-astros","tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-playoffs","tag-mlb-postseason","tag-nl-east"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117297398918325024","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=808924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/808925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}