Braves Clinch Playoff Berth Behind Acuna

Ronald Acuna Jr. smashed a two-run homer and snuffed an Astros rally with a diving catch as the Atlanta Braves clinched a postseason berth with a 6-2 win over Houston on Friday night. Michael Harris II and Matt Olson also went deep for two runs each, and Tyler Mahle carried six strong innings as Atlanta locked at least an NL wild card and cut its NL East magic number to three.

It is the Braves' eighth playoff trip in nine years. First place in the division stayed intact, and the club that has lived October baseball for most of this stretch is right back on the October map with a week-plus still left on the regular-season calendar.

Three long balls, one glove play

Harris, who finished with three hits, opened the scoring with a two-run shot off Peter Lambert in the fourth. Acuna padded the lead to 4-1 in the seventh against Bennett Sousa. Olson finished it with his 40th home run of the season in the ninth, becoming the fifth player in franchise history with multiple 40-homer seasons after his 54-homer record year in 2023.

Houston cut it to 4-2 on an Isaac Paredes RBI single in the eighth with runners on first and second and two outs. Jose Altuve then lifted a shallow fly to right, and Acuna laid out for the diving catch that ended the inning and kept the clinch night from getting sweaty.

Yordan Alvarez had doubled earlier to start Houston's first real push, but Mahle escaped the fourth and kept the Astros to three hits and one run across six innings with six strikeouts. Lambert took the loss after 5 1/3 innings.

October is booked

The loss dropped the Astros into a tie atop the AL West with Texas, which beat Toronto 7-1, though Houston still holds the season-series tiebreaker. Atlanta stays in first in the NL East with the magic number at three.

Acuna's bat and glove wrote the highlight reel. Atlanta is playoff-bound again, and the division chase is down to a short magic-number sprint.