Braves at Marlins series recap: It’s onto October for Atlanta

MIAMI, FLORIDA - SEPTEMBER 27: Mauricio Dubon #14 of the Atlanta Braves celebrates with teammates in the dugout after hitting a home run during the third inning against the Miami Marlins at loanDepot park on September 27, 2026 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Leonardo Fernandez/Getty Images) | Getty Images The regular season is over and it ended in quiet fashion for the Atlanta Braves. All of their big fireworks and celebrations took place last Sunday when they picked up a sweep in Houston in order to clinch the NL East title. It’s been a week since then and the Braves have essentially been in a bit of a holding pattern as they prepare for what will hopefully be a long and deep run into the Postseason.

class="wp-block-paragraph">Before they could get there, they had to play out the string and finish off the season with a road trip to Miami. The Marlins were playing to at least avoid having a losing season and while that may not seem like a lot, it means a lot to the players and the fans down there so there was certainly a bit more energy coming from the Marlins’ dugout rather than what we saw from the Braves. I’m not complaining, though — I think we’d all much rather see the Braves empty the tank over a long Postseason run rather than doing it in a season-ending series in Miami with not much on the line. Let’s take a look at the final series of the regular season, shall we?

Friday, September 25Marlins 3, Braves 0Shout-out to Eury Pérez. If you’re going to end your season, you may as well go out with a banger. Pérez did just that, as he ended up throwing a complete game, one-hit shutout on 105 pitches, eight strikeouts and just one walk. As far as Pérez goes, that’s a nice bit of redemption for him after the Braves really roughed him up in their last encounter and it was a bit of lovely moment for Marlins fans since it was the 10-year anniversary of former Marlins star José Fernández passing away.

class="wp-block-paragraph">As you can suspect from the results that I just described, there wasn’t a lot to write home about from Atlanta’s perspective. Sean Murphy got the lone hit and there didn’t seem like there was much urgency going on — which is understandable considering that Atlanta was already locked into the three-seed and the Wild Card Series before this series even began.

class="wp-block-paragraph">Anyways, Ray Kerr pitched three shutout innings and Grant Holmes tossed four innings while only giving up three hits and a run. He did walk three batters as well, so he did have to deal with some real traffic while he was out there. Still, it’s a pretty solid performance and one that hopefully Holmes can build on as the BRaves enter the Postseason.

Saturday, September 26Braves 8, Marlins 3This one was all Braves from nearly the words “Play Ball.” After Matt Olson got things going with a sacrifice fly in the first inning (that Michael Harris II did a great job of scoring on from a very shallow fly ball), the Braves added three more in the second inning thanks to a two-run dinger from Dominic Smith and an error allowing Ha-Seong Kim to score on an infield grounder from Ronald Acuña Jr. that Javier Sanoja booted into the air.

From the second inning onwards, the Braves maintained a pretty comfortable lead. An RBI double from Money Mike and an RBI single from Matt Olson made it 6-0 Braves in the fourth inning. While the Marlins did add on a pair of runs to make it on the board in their half of the fourth and then later on cut it down to a three-run lead with a Heriberto Hernández triple off of Robert Suarez in the seventh inning, the Braves got two of those runs back in the ninth after Drake Baldwin went deep to bring us to the final score of 8-3.

If this was a rehearsal for a bullpen game then the Braves looked pretty solid in that regard. Brent Suter went three innings while only giving up a hit, Victor Mederos went two innings where the only baserunner he had to deal with came via a walk and both Dylan Lee and Raisel Iglesias pitched scoreless innings as well. Dylan Dodd got knocked around for a couple of runs and Robert Suarez got ambushed once again but none of that was overly concerning to see. The bullpen is going to have to come up huge in October if the Braves are going to go far and so far, the outlook is encouraging.

Sunday, September 27Marlins 5, Braves 3I’d imagine that more eyes across Braves Country were focused on what was happening in Philadelphia and San Diego rather than what was happening in Miami. In the end, the Phillies finally punched their ticket to October after finally picking up the win that they’d needed for what felt like this entire week and the Diamondbacks ended up not even keeping up their end of the bargain, anyways. The Braves will be taking on the Phillies, which I’m sure everybody is s u p e r e x c i t e d to see happen once again.

class="wp-block-paragraph">Anyways, the last dress rehearsal for the Braves saw them go down in defeat in order to finish their season with 94 wins. If this was JR Ritchie’s audition for a Wild Card roster spot, I’d say that the good news is that he did end up eating nearly six innings. The bad news is that he got knocked around for seven hits, two walks and four runs scored while only striking out two batters, so the results weren’t exactly encouragin. We’ll see what happens as far as his roster status goes but if they’re going by results then it’s really anybody’s guess as to whether or not he’ll make it onto the roster.

class="wp-block-paragraph">AJ Smith-Shawver followed that up by giving up a long homer to Griffin Conine in the seventh inning, which was his only blemish across 1.1 innings. Elieser Hernández ended up pitching the final ining this season for the Braves, which is good for him considering the up-and-down nature of call-ups that he’s head to deal with over the course of this season.

class="wp-block-paragraph">Meanwhile, a patchwork lineup didn’t exactly make a ton of noise and if you were expecting anything different, I don’t know what to tell you. Mauricio Dubón did hit one out in the third inning and then he added on an RBI single later on, so he had a solid day. DaShawn Keirsey Jr. picked up his first (and only) RBI of the season on a productive out and Sean Murphy had two hits. That’s about it for Atlanta’s offense and the Braves went quietly into the Postseason.

So there you have it! If you care about results, then the Braves aren’t exactly rolling into the Postseason as they dropped consecutive series against the Reds and Marlins to finish off the final week of the season. With that being said, I’d imagine that everybody has had their eyes on the Postseason (and the Wild Card Series in particular) ever since they had the champagne shower in Houston seven days ago, so this wasn’t exactly a week that called for much urgency from the Braves.

class="wp-block-paragraph">The good news is that they didn’t have to expend anywhere near the energy or resources that their Wild Card Series opponents in Philadelphia had to pour out in order to just make the Postseason, so the Braves will have the advantage of being able to set themselves up for potential success rather than essentially having to come into the Postseason battle-scarred. Philadelphia’s situation honestly reminds me of how the Braves had to play all 162 games in order to make the Wild Card Series in 2024 and we all know how that ended for Atlanta once they had to travel to San Diego after a tough and trying week. The Phillies will have to ifgure out a way to navigate similar circumstances and it’s Atlanta’s job to make sure that an exhausted-looking Phillies squad looks as such once the Wild Card Series starts on Tuesday.

class="wp-block-paragraph">Overall, it’s been a pretty interesting season overall! We all hoped that the Braves would be in this position and a lot of the projection models predicted that the Braves would be where they’re at right now. As Ivan has mentioned a bunch of times now, they surely took a roundabout route to get to those 94 wins and a NL East divisional title but they made it there and now they will try their best in the crapshoot that is the MLB Postseason. The Braves will get one day of rest before playing in front of what will hopefully be an energetic and loud crowd at Truist Park for the first Postseason game in this ballpark since 2023. Truist Park has been a place of comfort for the Braves so far this season and now they’ll have the benefit of playing this Wild Card Series all at home with a shot to go even further. We’ll see what happens!