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On Monday, the Braves shocked the baseball world with the announcement of plans to build a new stadium in the suburbs of Cobb County, Georgia, per The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. If it feels like Turner Field just opened yesterday, your sense of time isn’t that far off from reality.

After just 17 seasons at Turner Field, the Braves are planning to move, citing the need for expensive upgrades to keep the stadium as a tourist attraction and state-of-the-art venue. The necessity to play closer to the heart of the fanbase, per Deadspin, is also a major part of the story.

With plans set on a move in time for the 2017 season, the Braves will play a grand total of 20 seasons at Turner Field. At first glace, that’s barely enough time to make a few memories. Yet a deeper dive into the history of Turner Field yields a bounty of memorable moments.

The following list celebrates the best moments in a park that will soon cease to exist. Despite never featuring a World Series winning club, Turner Field has been privy to an amazing amount of history in a short time.

All statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com, unless otherwise noted.

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One of the biggest questions for the Atlanta Braves heading into the postseason was whether the lack of experience in their starting rotation and the absence of a true “ace” would come back to bite them.

Kris Medlen was 9-2 with a 2.08 ERA over his last 12 regular games—11 starts, one relief appearance—before getting lit up by the Dodgers (4 IP, 5 ER, 9 H) in the team’s loss in the NLDS opener on Thursday. 

With Games 3 and 4 of the series slated for Dodger Stadium next week, the pressure was on another regular-season star, Mike Minor, to help even up the series with a home victory on Friday night.

Mission accomplished.

In his postseason debut, the 25-year-old Minor outdueled Zack Greinke as the Braves beat the Dodgers 4-3. The left-hander, who left with one out and his team leading 2-1 in the seventh inning, allowed just one earned run on eight hits while walking one and striking out five. It was the 12th time on the season that he’s allowed one earned run or fewer, although he had only done it three times since the All-Star break before Friday.

After allowing an RBI double to Hanley Ramirez in the first inning, Minor held the Dodgers in check until his departure. While he didn’t have his best stuff—he had only one 1-2-3 inning and allowed more than seven hits for just the seventh time all season—he worked his way out of trouble on numerous occasions.

The leadoff runner reached base four of seven times against him. None came around to score. He induced double-play grounders after leadoff singles in the second and third innings and left runners in scoring position in the first and sixth innings. He also got some help from his bullpen when lefty Luis Avilan got Carl Crawford to hit into an inning-ending double play with runners at the corners and one out in the seventh. 

Not only did the Braves tie up the series at one game apiece, it was their first playoff win since 2010 and first such win at home since 2005, a season which capped off a run of 14 playoff appearances in 15 years.

Minor became the staff ace by default after Tim Hudson was lost for the season with a fractured ankle back in July. His overall regular season stats (13-9, 3.21 ERA, 204.2 IP, 177 H, 46 BB, 181 K, 72% quality start rate) show that he also pitched like a true No. 1 starter.

That’s quite a feat for a guy who had a 6.20 ERA after 15 starts last season. 

Last September, David Schoenfield of ESPN took a closer look at Minor’s turnaround, which began on July 5, 2012 and was aided by an improved precision of his change up. In his last fifteen starts of the season, he had a 2.12 ERA while holding opponents to a .557 OPS. He came into 2013 a much more confident pitcher, and his success of his 2012 second half has certainly carried over. 

In September, Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez was effusive in his praise of the young left-hander’s growth as a pitcher. 

Minor knew how much this win meant for his team:

After Minor added an impressive postseason victory to his resume, the Braves probably feel pretty good about their postseason chances if they can get past the Dodgers.

And it’s safe to say that they probably feel pretty good about giving Minor the ball on Opening Day 2014.

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Be excited Braves fans, the postseason has finally arrived.

The Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers are set to square off on Thursday for a five-game series with the winner advancing to the NLCS (online viewing information found here).

The Dodgers look to be a formidable team with a strong starting rotation highlighted by Cy Young favorite Clayton Kershaw to go with a potent lineup.

However, the Braves beat the Dodgers five of seven games in the regular season and hold the home-field advantage, where the Braves are a majors-best 56-25 this season.

Despite all the excitement surrounding this postseason, there are still some lingering questions that will be answered in a few days.

Here’s a look at those questions as well as a best guess as to how manager Fredi Gonzalez will go about answering those.

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Like the Red Sox, whose offseason free agent targets I previewed yesterday, the Braves are one of the best teams in baseball without too many weaknesses on their current roster. The difference is that the Sox have several key players headed for free agency while the Braves have just one—catcher Brian McCann. And they could choose to replace him internally. 

So, barring a quick exit from the playoffs, which could intensify their pursuit of an impact player this winter, it could be a very quiet offseason in Atlanta. That doesn’t mean they won’t have their eye on several free agents who could help strengthen the roster and provide the much-needed depth to compete over a long season. 

Here are some free agents they could pursue in four different areas of potential need.

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They said you couldn’t parody “Blurred Lines” without skin suits. They said it couldn’t be done tastefully. And they were wrong.

After winning the NL East, the Atlanta Braves have plenty to celebrate—and their fans are doing it in style.

MyFoxAtlanta.com discovered this recently released gem from Atlanta comedian Aaron Chewning, who collaborated with former catcher Javy López and members of the Braves organization to create “Baselines,” a parody of Robin Thicke’s hit single “Blurred Lines.”

Put simply, it’s pretty great.

Image via @AaronChewning

Chewning, López and Homer (the mascot) get their suit and tie on and strut it out. They’ve got the Uptons and the Johnsons. They’ve also got members of the Braves’ Tomahawk Team, who do a bang-up job of prancing about and looking completely fine with all this weird stuff, as in the original Robin Thicke spot.

Image via @AaronChewning

Some of my personal favorites from the parody:

• “When you release the Kimbrel—HE’S GOT THE FASTEST PITCH IN THIS PLACE.”

• Tomahawk team girls winging a bat at Homer’s head.

• Anytime you get to see López strut backward through the frame.

Unlike the original video, it would appear no livestock was awkwardly cradled in the making of this parody, which I believe we can all agree is a big step forward for everyone.

Image via Vevo

So there you are. You have your rallying call and ballpark anthem for the rest of the postseason. The other good news is that your team won’t trade Justin Upton—not at this point in time at least.

At the trade deadline, the Braves turned down an offer from the Texas Rangers, who were looking to swap Matt Garza, Joe Nathan and David Murphy for the younger Upton. 

Be proud of your team, Braves fans. Just don’t slip and fall while dancing to this song in the shower.

What rhymes with Uggla? 

Follow @Dr__Carson

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The 2013 Atlanta Braves can pump the breaks on their intensity over the final two weeks of the regular season. After all, at 30 games over .500 (88-58) and with a double-digit lead in the National League East, they are a virtual lock to win the division and host the first two games of a National League Division Series at Turner Field.

However, if the team does not want to lose their fire and competitive edge before October arrives, there are three ways to accomplish the task of staying sharp, playing to win on a nightly basis and mentally preparing for the start of very meaningful baseball.

First, and easily the most important: Recognize how much home-field advantage means.

In general, home-field advantage in the postseason doesn’t guarantee anything, but for this particular Braves team the difference between playing at Turner Field and on the road has been stark.

At 51-20 in Atlanta, the Braves own baseball’s best home-field advantage this season. No other team has less than 25 losses at home. Considering that less than half the season is played at home, Atlanta’s home-field difference prorates to more than 10 games better than any team in the sport over the course of a full season.

Meanwhile, the Braves are in danger of taking a losing road record (37-38) with them into October. They are currently the lone division leader sporting a losing record away from their building. If a Division Series or League Championship Series comes down to a deciding game, lineup decisions and starting pitching might have to do less with advancing than the simple fact of where Atlanta plays the game.

Heading into play Friday evening, Atlanta owns a two-game advantage over Los Angeles for the National League’s No. 1 seed in October. That lead is three over Pittsburgh and St. Louis atop the Central.

Winning games over the next few weeks isn’t paramount to earning a spot in October, but it could make the difference on how far the team can go when they arrive to the big stage.

Outside of a tangible reason for keeping an edge, the Braves can invent competitive moments to stoke their fire.

In other words, the benches-clearing melee (via MLB.com) that occurred in Miami earlier this week when a Marlins rookie pitcher admired his first career long ball.

Did the 21-year-old Jose Fernandez need to showboat after the shot and spit when rounding third base? Of course not. Did the Braves have to make it a bigger deal by confronting the kid? Of course not.

We’ll never know, but it’s possible that Atlanta was looking for a reason to care about an otherwise innocuous midweek game against a listless Marlins team in front of a mostly empty stadium in Miami.

If that’s the kind of thing that can keep an edge until the first week of October, Braves fans won’t mind.

Lastly, the team with the biggest division lead in baseball can circle their calender for next week’s series against the second-place Washington Nationals.

Although the Nats have played much, much better baseball in September (9-2 over last 11 games), they’ve only been able to cut Atlanta’s lead from 15.5 games on Aug. 18 to 11 heading into play Friday.

That margin, however, conveniently creates a scenario where the Braves can clinch the division against Washington in a series that begins Monday in Nationals Park.

The ability to win the division, on the road, against last year’s National League East champions should be enough motivation to get Atlanta through the early part of next week.

Fight for home field. Find an edge in the smallest creases of the game. Finish the division in Washington.

The blueprint for solid, winning baseball in Atlanta is simple. If they follow it and play decent ball until October, narratives won’t follow them into the postseason.

If they scuffle over the last 16 games this month, expect the team to be faced with questions about peaking too early before they even drop a postseason game.

Comment below, follow me on Twitter or “like” my Facebook page to talk all things baseball.

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The Atlanta Braves could stand to add a competent hitter to their bench, and they are running out of time to do so. 

The non-waiver trade deadline came and went with July, but the Braves will have until the end of August to negotiate a trade for players who have cleared waivers. Of course, that limits their targets and essentially guarantees the Braves would have to take on a poor contract (otherwise the player(s) wouldn’t have cleared waivers). 

With the best record in baseball at 74-51, however, the Braves should feel comfortable making postseason plans. And this places an emphasis on a “win now” philosophy.

When a team feels it is on the precipice of a serious run at the World Series, making a bold and risky move becomes a more acceptable cost of business. 

In this instance, adding a slugger who can come off the bench appears to be on Atlanta’s wish list. 

Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal passed along that Braves would indeed like to add a bat, and more specifically, “a legitimate power threat.”

Making this need even more pressing is the fact that the recently called up Tyler Pastornicky has a torn ACL and will be on the shelf for at least the remainder of the season.

Pastornicky’s absence is not the end of the world. The 23-year-old second baseman’s presence with the big club didn’t become necessary until Dan Uggla opted to have LASIK surgery. He cannot return to action any sooner than Aug. 28. 

This means Paul Janish is now likely headed for second until Uggla returns. Janish helped fill in at shortstop last year for the Braves during the stretch run, and he will ensure Atlanta’s defense does not suffer any drop off. 

However, he isn’t going to help out much on offense, and as Mark Bowman of MLBlogs.com tells us, the Braves are looking for another infielder as a result.  

Barring something dramatically unforeseen, Uggla will be back before long, and perhaps the surgery will help him improve upon his .186 average. Still, the Braves continue to look for other options, and I certainly don’t blame them. They just need to do so with some caution.

Atlanta is not offensively starved. The Braves posted the third best batting average in July and are currently 15th in August. Furthermore, they were eighth in home runs in July and occupy that same ranking this month. 

Sure, they could stand to solidify their offensive depth, but to land an experienced player with the ability to upgrade the Braves’ offensive situation would mean they’d have to either take on a bad deal or overwhelm a team with prospects.

At this point, the Braves must be looking for someone they feel they could confidently call upon during the postseason to come off the bench and deliver a big hit. Anyone talented enough to inspire that kind of confidence is going to be pricey at this point. And the Braves are too complete of a team to take that risk. 

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Braves 3, Nationals 2  (F/10) 

WP: Scott Downs (4-3) LP: Ian Krol (1-1) 

How They Scored: 

Bottom 1: Jason Heyward scores on a double play. 

Bottom 3: Justin Upton RBI Fielder’s Choice 

Top 4: Bryce Harper scores on a double play. 

Top 8: Jayson Werth RBI Single

Bottom 10: Justin Upton Solo Home Run 

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The Atlanta Braves have been absolutely awesome the past couple weeks, if you haven’t noticed. An 11-game winning streak entering Tuesday night’s action has allowed them to leave the rest of the NL East in the dust.

This begs the question: should we consider the Braves World Series favorites based on their recent dominance, or dismiss it and emphasize their prior three-month stretch of inconsistency?

Despite a fiery 13-2 start to the 2013 season, a lot went wrong early on.

Remember how Atlanta’s outfield had the potential to be one of the best ever? The supreme athleticism, past production and relatively young ages of Jason Heyward, B.J. Upton and Justin Upton made it seem like a safe bet that they would be worth at least 10 Wins Above Replacement. Many analysts had them penciled in for even better performances, and understandably so.

Courtesy of FanGraphs, here’s what this trio accomplished from 2010-2012:

Funny how baseball works.

Coming off a career year, Heyward stunk in April. He batted an anemic .121 through 17 games before an appendectomy sent him to the disabled list.

Dealing with enormous pressure after inking a five-year, $75.25 million contract, B.J. endured a humiliating start of his own. He was striking out as often as anybody in baseball and facing the threat of demotion as his struggles continued into June, according to the Associated Press.

In stark contrast, the younger Upton was challenging franchise records with a season-opening power surge, which included six home runs through seven contests and elevated the Braves to first place. They’ve been there ever since, but hardly because of Justin. The 25-year-old saw his name disappear from MVP and All-Star discussions as his offensive numbers plummeted, particularly against right-handed pitching.

Fortunately, the Braves have been carried by several unlikely sources of production.

Third baseman Chris Johnson, an afterthought when the Justin Upton trade was completed in January, leads the National League in batting! After years on inexplicable mediocrity against left-handers, he entered Tuesday with a .963 OPS against them. A .425 BABIP assures that Johnson’s numbers will regress, but maintaining his excellent line drive rate should prevent anything too dramatic.

Former janitor Evan Gattis solidified the catching position while Brian McCann recovered from offseason shoulder surgery. He doesn’t have a strong case for NL Rookie of the Year anymore, but manager Fredi Gonzalez ought to be thrilled to have a such a slugger available off the bench.

Most importantly, the pitching staff has smoothly adjusted to major losses. Luis Avilan masterfully sets up for Craig Kimbrel like Jonny Venters used to, and coming off a frustrating campaign at Triple-A, Julio Teheran has deepened the starting rotation. Because of him, the front office didn’t need to panic in response to Tim Hudson’s fractured ankle.

There’s plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the Braves moving forward.

For one, Kimbrel is the best reliever in baseball. This cannot be disputed. Dating back to the 2011 All-Star break, the right-hander has racked up 240 strikeouts with only 43 walks in 137 innings, converting 94 of 103 save opportunities (91.3 percent).

Justin Upton has awoken from his slump, recording at least one hit in each game since July 27. Between he, Gattis, McCann and Dan Uggla, it’s awfully risky to leave a fastball up in the strike zone, as each of them can deposit one into the bleachers with ease.

Then we have Freddie Freeman and Andrelton Simmons, who used to be two of the most underrated players in the entire sport. Now, most of us have been made aware of Freeman’s surreal 1.168 OPS with runners in scoring position, and Simmons’ unprecedented defensive excellence (via Christina Kahrl, ESPN.com).

Rotation depth is yet another strength of Atlanta’s now that Brandon Beachy is back from Tommy John surgery. If the Indiana native can find any semblance of his 2012 form (2.00 ERA, 0.96 WHIP in 13 GS), he and Mike Minor (2.76 ERA, 137 K in 150.0 IP) will be an imposing pair to face in any playoff series.

With less than eight weeks left in the regular season, the Braves will not only cruise toward a postseason berth, but to the No. 1 record in the Senior Circuit.

Consider their remaining schedule. This team won’t play another game west of St. Louis, which means no long flights or major time-zone changes messing with players’ biological clocks. Moreover, only two more series—seven total games—will come against opponents with winning records.

The extraordinary cushion separating the Braves from the Washington Nationals will provide ample opportunities to rest stars down the stretch.

Follow @MrElyminator

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Don’t look now, but the Atlanta Braves are on an 11-game winning streak. And it’s all thanks to Waffle House.

You’re probably wondering how in the world Waffle House can have anything to do with a winning streak.

Well, on July 26, the Braves officially opened MLB‘s first Waffle House at a ballpark. According to NESN.com’s Stephen Hewitt, Waffle House at Turner Field features a scaled-down version of the restaurant menu:

It features a scaled-down menu compared to the regular-sized restaurants, but all the essentials are there, including classic, peanut butter or chocolate chip waffles. Fans can also order plain or “All The Way” hash browns, which includes onions, cheese, chili, ham and peppers, and in true ballpark-style, costs $9.

Since then, the Braves have gone 11-0.

Coincidence?

I think not.

There is even a Twitter account attached to the Waffle House at Turner Field.

Dan Oshinsky of BuzzFeed even wrote about 11 things that have happened since a Waffle House opened at “The Ted.”

Well…it was hardly writing because there are only 11 pictures with winning scores by the Braves in the past 11 games. During that stretch, they’ve outscored their opponents 68-27. Talk about scattering and smothering.

Braves players didn’t hold back on their reactions, either. While Dan Uggla, Alex Wood and Jordan Schafer talked about their favorite types of hash browns, Craig Kimbrel talked about Waffle House in the minor leagues.

And what does Braves Country have to say about all of this?

Whether or not you believe it’s a coincidence, the Braves and their fans are running with it.

You can’t fully expect the Braves to win the rest of their games this year, but it does make for an interesting story.

Now, let’s see if they can break the 1935 Chicago Cubs NL record for most consecutive games won without a tie (21).

They’re more than halfway there.

Regardless of your belief as to whether or not Waffle House is truly making a difference, one thing is for sure: Waffle House is now forever entwined with the Braves.

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