Best Postseason Win: Boston Braves

The last post was about the Atlanta Braves, who had one of baseball's longest runs of regular-season success in the 1990s and early 2000s. The Braves of a century earlier were like them in essentially no ways.

First, they weren't in Atlanta; they were in Boston. Second, they weren't the Braves; they started the 20th century as the Boston Beaneaters, then went through such imposing nicknames as the Doves and the Rustlers before settling on Braves in 1912 (with a brief detour to Bees in the late '30s). And third, they were straight-up awful. The World Series was first played in 1903, and it featured the Beaneaters' Boston counterparts (then known as the Boston Americans, because they were in the American league... subtlety was not an omnipresent feature of early baseball nicknames). Meanwhile, the Beaneaters themselves, who had been reasonably successful in 1902 (a 73-64-5 record, good for third in the NL), slipped significantly to 58-80-2, and fell to sixth in the standings. (The last number in those records, of course, represents ties, because ties were a relatively common feature of formative baseball. If the sun went down and neither team was winning, there weren't a lot of options.)

That .420 winning percentage and sixth-place finish both represented the franchise's high point for the next decade. From 1904-12, the team that would eventually be known as the Braves came in last in the eight-team NL five times, and seventh in three other years. And they weren't merely a bad team; they tended to be a dreadful one, as six times in the nine years, they failed to win even 35% of their games. By comparison, the only team in the last decade to dip below 35% has been the abysmal Astros of recent vintage; they fell that far three times, bottoming out at .311 in 2013, their first AL season. Boston's NL franchise came in below that decade-worst winning percentage twice in the early 20th century: .294 in 1909, and .291 in 1911.

The recently-christened Braves turned things around a bit in 1913, finishing in fifth, with a 69-82 record. But in 1914, business as usual seemed to be resuming, as the team started off 3-16 and found themselves 10.5 games out of first after a month of play. The team started to play better from there; it would have been nearly impossible not to. But after getting swept in a July 4 doubleheader, they were 26-40, 15 games out and still in last.

After that... things turned around. The Braves won four straight, then three, then six. On August 1, they climbed back to .500, at 45-45, for the first time since they hadn't played a game yet. That was in the middle of an eight-game winning streak; once that was broken, they won seven more in a row (with the exception of a tie). On July 18, the Braves had been in last; 30 days later, they were in second, three games behind the Giants. They had gone 22-3 over the intervening month.

Much like their abysmal beginning, that pace was unsustainable, and the Braves did start to lose a bit more often - but so did the Giants. Boston pulled even for the first time on August 25, and two days later, started a 10-3 run that moved them from 1.5 games back to 1.5 games ahead. Then they really took off, unleashing a 20-2 sprint that emphatically ended any semblance of a pennant race.

The Braves, arguably the National League's worst franchise, were going to the World Series, making them the first team other than the Giants, Cubs, and Pirates to represent the Senior Circuit. Their opponents? The Philadelphia A's, owners of the storied $100,000 infield and winners of three of the previous four Series.

Naturally, the Braves went into Philadelphia and beat up on the A's just like they had on everyone else they'd faced for the last three months. They knocked Chief Bender around to take the first game 7-1, then had their young ace, Bill James (no, not that one), outduel future Hall of Famer Eddie Plank 1-0 in Game 2. The Series shifted to Fenway Park (the Braves played about a third of their home games there) for the third game, which doubles as our entry here.

1914 World Series Game 3: Braves 5, A's 4 (12). The pitching matchup was a pair of youngsters: Boston's 24-year-old Lefty Tyler, who two years earlier had led the NL in losses while pitching for a lousy Braves team, and Philly's 21-year-old Bullet Joe Bush, who two years later would lead the AL in losses while pitching for a lousy A's team. There's probably a full blog post in discussing each of their careers, and there's a full-length book in laying out the story of how the A's went from being great to terrible, but we've done enough lead-in already.

Best Postseason Win: Atlanta Braves

The Atlanta Braves of the 1990s and early 2000s are one of baseball's longest-lasting dynasties (non-Yankee edition). They famously won 14 consecutive division titles (in completed seasons; the Expos led them in the NL East when the strike hit in 1994). You can argue that this record was enabled by the changes in baseball's playoff format - but that argument doesn't hold up terribly well, because if you lump the NL together as one giant league (and make the same exception for '94 that's already made for the division title streak), the Braves would have won seven consecutive pennants from 1992-99. That would also have been a record, and one set in a larger league than any of the Yankee dynasties it surpassed.

Given their constant presence in the postseason for a decade and a half, it should come as no surprise that the Braves won quite a few October games - 65 since the move to Atlanta, nearly all of them within their stretch of dominance. Some of those games were quite noteworthy - the clinching sixth game of the 1999 NLCS was an utterly wild 11-inning seesaw affair, the seventh game of the 1992 NLCS featured probably the most dramatic pinch hit single in baseball history, and the 1991 World Series, while best-known for dramatic victories by the opposing Twins, had a pair of spectacular wins by the Braves as well.

I am picking none of those games. Instead, the selection is (probably) the first NLDS game played under the new playoff format, Game 1 of the 1995 NLDS: Braves 5, Rockies 4. The Rockies started their ace, Kevin Ritz, who attained that status by being their only pitcher to qualify for the ERA title. (The Rockies actually had a pretty good pitching staff once you adjust for Coors Field, but it was very bullpen heavy.) The Braves countered with their ace, Greg Maddux, who earned that billing by winning the ERA title. For the third year in a row. And his fourth straight Cy Young award. And coming in third in the MVP voting. And winning his sixth straight Gold Glove, because the other stuff didn't make him ridiculous enough.

Greg Maddux was good. You all know this, and I'm not going to do a second consecutive multi-paragraph digression about a Hall of Fame Braves starter. Let's get to the game.

Best Postseason Win: Milwaukee Braves

The Milwaukee Braves are, I believe, the shortest-lived team to have an entry on this list. The Braves are one of the two franchises to have moved twice; the other, the Philadelphia/Kansas City/Oakland Athletics, did not make the playoffs in their middle iteration. But the Braves had something going for them that the A's didn't: Hank Aaron. And Eddie Mathews. And... well, let's forgo listing all of their players and just say they were a highly talented team - one that arguably should have won more than they did.

But here at Best Postseason Win, we're focused on the positive. And the positive in this case is a good one: 1957 World Series Game 4, Braves 7, Yankees 5 (10). New York's starter was Tom Sturdivant, who spent most of his career as a reliever; '57 was his only all-starting season, and it was a good one. He went 16-6 in a career-high 28 starts, with a 2.54 ERA.

The Braves replied with the guy who would have been next on the above list of great players: Warren Spahn, who in 1957 had essentially an average season - for Warren Spahn. Which means that he went 21-11, 2.69.

(No, seriously, this was almost exactly his average, in all respects. Spahn's full numbers were 21-11, 2.69 ERA (130 ERA+), 35 starts, 18 complete games, 271 innings, 111 strikeouts, 78 walks, 23 homers allowed, and 4.7 WAR per Baseball-Reference, His averages over a 17-year span, from 1947-63, were (with some rounding): 20-12, 2.96 (124 ERA+), 35 starts, 21 complete games, 278 innings, 138 strikeouts, 75 walks, 22 homers allowed, and 5.4 WAR. Eleven times in those 17 years, Spahn's total WAR was between 4 and 7. Ten seasons of the 17, he won either 21 or 22 games.)

(We'll get to the game in a minute, I promise, but one more Spahn note first: His 1957 was probably not quite as good as his average season - and he won the Cy Young. And this was in the early days of the Cy, when they only gave out one award for all of MLB.)

Best Postseason Win: Milwaukee Brewers

There have been two genuinely good Brewers teams in the history of the franchise - Harvey's Wallbangers in the early '80s, and the NL Central contenders of roughly 2007-12. The Wallbangers were clearly better; their six consecutive winning seasons from 1978-83 are easily the franchise's high-water mark, and they won the only pennant in team history. They are also likely to be more fondly remembered. Their two best players were Robin Yount, who spent hist entire Hall of Fame career with the Brewers, and Paul Molitor, who stuck with Milwaukee for all but the end of his career as well. Molitor struggled with drug use early in his career, but cocaine has to this point not been considered nearly as serious an offense in baseball circles as steroids, which got current Brewer star Ryan Braun suspended for half a season. Meanwhile, the recent squad's other signature player, Prince Fielder, left town in his prime to sign a large (one might even say Prince Fielder-sized) contract with the Tigers.

All of that is to say, most fans would probably opt for a postseason win from the 1980s Brewers here, rather than the more recent version. Naturally, WPL does not care, and in this case, at least, I agree with it.

Game 5, 2011 NLDS: Brewers 3, Diamondbacks 2 (10). The decisive game of the series matched up the two aces, pitting Milwaukee's Yovani Gallardo against Arizona's... Ian Kennedy? Man, it's only been four years and it's still hard to remember that Kennedy had a 21-4 season.

Best Postseason Win: Seattle Mariners

The Mariners are better off than some of the other teams whose victories we've reviewed - but not overwhelmingly so, having never reached the World Series and only winning 16 postseason games to date in their 39-year history. In fact, it took nearly 20 years for them to reach the playoffs for the first time, and by that point, the possibility existed that the team would be moved out of Seattle.

Any Mariner fan reading this already knows what came next - and the result is Seattle's entry here. 1995 ALDS Game 5: Mariners 6, Yankees 5 (11). The pitching matchup features David Cone for the second straight entry here; this time, the itinerant ace took the mound for the Yankees, facing off with Andy Benes, whose two-month stint with the Mariners completely escaped my attention (probably because it was rather forgettable; his ERA was over 5).

Best Postseason Win: Toronto Blue Jays

The Blue Jays have two major advantages on their former Canadian brethren. First, they've won two World Series titles, and made the playoffs a few more times (including this year).

Second, they still exist. So they have that going for them, which is nice.

The more famous of Toronto's back-to-back world titles is 1993, which featured both the highest-scoring game in World Series history and a come-from-behind Series-ending walkoff homer. So naturally, WPL is bypassing both of those games in favor of the best entry from the previous year.

1992 World Series Game 6: Blue Jays 4, Braves 3 (11). The pitching matchup was David Cone, who at 29 had been traded for the first time in midseason, thereby putting him on the wandering ace path that would define the latter part of his excellent career, against Steve Avery, a 22-year-old lefty coming off of back-to-back 35-start, 115 ERA+ seasons, who fit in nicely with the other two young aces on the Atlanta staff (for now).

Best Postseason Win: Montreal Expos

The best postseason win for the Expos was, of course, the seventh game of the 1994 World Series, in which the greatest Expo team of all time, led by star outfielders Larry Walker and Moises Alou, plus a pitching staff including ace Ken Hill, emergent Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez, and stud closer John Wetteland, beat the Yankees in a 15-inning thriller. It was, in fact, the greatest game that was never played.

But since we're constrained by the need to describe actual events, we'll go with the best of a limited set of options - 1981 NLDS Game 1: Expos 3, Phillies 1. Montreal started the best pitcher in team history, Steve Rogers, whose nickname obviously would have been Captain America if he'd played for almost any other team. Despite Rogers' excellence, they were still at a disadvantage against Philly's Steve Carlton, a Hall of Famer whose third-place finish in the '81 Cy Young voting was sandwiched between a pair of wins.