5 reasons the Atlanta Braves won the NL East in 2019

It’s now official: the Atlanta Braves are 2019 NL East champs. Let’s see what got them there.

If you decided to take a night off from watching the Atlanta Braves on Friday night… oh boy.

On Friday night, the Braves hosted the San Francisco Giants in what is the team’s last series at home, the final weekend at SunTrust Park.

However, the Braves wasted no time and took care of business in Game 1, shutting out the Giants and clinching the NL East.

Folks, that’s back-to-back division titles and the Braves 19th overall — tying the New York Yankees for the most since this whole division thing started, in 1969.

If you haven’t already, check out all the great content on the site, including relations on the Braves’ big win:

• James Kunkle’s reaction to the Braves’ win
• Alan Carpenter’s three takeaways from Friday night
• Jake Mastroianni on the Braves’ unpredictable season

A perfect clincher

For what I’m about to delve into, Friday night’s division-clinching win couldn’t have been more perfect. The Braves demonstrated almost every topic that we’re about to examine in this piece.

It’s almost like a season’s worth of team attributes just busted out for one single game… and what a game it was.

The Braves-Giants game on Friday may not have been a close one or even all that interesting, but the components that have created this exciting and dominant team were on full display — the same features that made a division-winner out of the 2019 Atlanta Braves.

We know last season the Braves came out of nowhere and benefited from some underwhelming play inside the division. The Washington Nationals choked, the New York Mets were the Mets and the Philadelphia Phillies were still rebuilding.

Now the 2018 Braves didn’t just get lucky, that team pitched well and played great defense, and because of countless other reasons they were able to bring home a division title.

But how did they do it this season? How did the Atlanta Braves win the NL East in 2019?

The Phillies retooled and brought in some great hitters for its lineup:  Bryce Harper, J.T. Realmuto, Jean Sugura and Andrew McCutchen (though, McCutchen spent a lot of the season on the IL).

The Mets brought in Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz, plus an entire starting rotation that was finally healthy.

And even the Nationals — who would’ve been fine on paper even if they did nothing — traded for a staff-ace in most rotations, starter Patrick Corbin. I mean for goodness sakes, their starting staff consists of Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and Corbin!

But it’s not about what a team looks like on paper or how popular additions to the team are. Sure, the Braves made some moves that got us all excited, but in the end, the team still must go out and play the games.

TRere are five primary reasons the Atlanta Braves were able to do it again this year – winning their second division title in-a-row. You could argue the exact order or importance for these five reasons, but each one was crucial in getting the Braves where they are today.

Let’s take a look…