2021 World Series Preview and Prediction: David vs. Goliath

We finally got our World Series matchup as both the Houston Astros and the Atlanta Braves won their league championship series in six games. This marks the Astros’ third World Series appearance in five years and is the Braves’ first World Series appearance since 1999.

Both the Astros and the Braves are coming into the season had this expectation of making it to the World Series, yet both teams took very different routes to get there. The Astros, throughout the regular season, were considered one of the best teams in the American League. With players such as Carlos Correa, Yordan Alverez, Jose Altuve, and Alex Bregman, the team’s hitting core is loaded with talent and looked unstoppable this regular season and appears to be solid this postseason, as well. The team’s only problem is on the pitching staff, as they lost Justin Verlander early in the season due to injury, and still haven’t had an ace pitcher step up to carry them to the victories they may have been banking on. 

The Braves, on the other hand, are a very different story. They came into the season as World Series hopefuls, but by the time they got to the All-Star break, they were not meeting expectations in the slightest. By the end of the first half of the season, they were 44-45, which put them in 3rd place in the putrid NL east, and had just lost superstar Ronald Acuña Jr. to a torn ACL. Their season looked all but done after the All-Star Break, yet they never gave up and finished the second half of the season 44-28 and won the NL East.

Their team is led by veteran Freddie Freeman, Ozzie Albies, Joc Pederson, and Eddie Rosario, who had a huge NLCS. The shocking weakness of this team will be first baseman, Freddie Freeman, if he underperforms. Freeman had a horrendous NLCS, and if he can’t pick up his performance in the World Series, it will make winning  very difficult for the Braves to win it all. The Braves rely too heavily on him for him to have a lackluster WS. The Astros are heavily favored to win this year’s World Series, but this would not be the first time that they would lose after being heavily favored to win, as it happened in 2019 against the Washington Nationals. Nonetheless, I still don’t think that the Braves have enough firepower to take down the Astros.

While they were able to take down the Dodgers, I find the Astros hitting to be more consistent and overall better than the Dodgers, and it will end up being too much for the Braves. I boldly predict the Astros will take the series in 6 games.