Let's Road Trip Brewers 2025: Trip #10 - Time for Some National League East

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The Brewers have a chance to make some movement up the standings in early August as they head to the nation's capital to face Washington. Hot-lanta awaits for the second half of the road trip. Will Milwaukee find success as they travel to the East Coast? Or will these National League rivals play spoilers?

Image courtesy of Braves Construction Company, LLC

Washington Nationals - August 1-3
Nationals Park - Capacity 41,339
2024 Attendance: 1,967,302 (Averaged 24,287, ranked 13th out of NL parks and 22nd overall)

The Brewers came storming the capital in August 2024, but they left with their tails between their legs, having dropped a series two games-to-one against an inferior Nationals squad.  Overall, the Brewers are 24-28 in the nation's capital, which makes this stretch of the dog days of summer particularly difficult. No matter how the Nationals look on paper, the Brewers struggle in this environment. One outlier is the 2021 season, which saw the Brewers sweep a three-game series.

In 2004, the Montreal Expos’ story ended, and the Washington Nationals’ story began. After Major League Baseball took over the Expos, they brokered the move for baseball to return to Washington, D.C., after the town birthed and lost the Senators… twice.  The Twins and Rangers can thank the city for their franchises, but the Nationals haven’t had much to be thankful for since 2019 saw them rise to the pinnacle and bring home the World Series. The days of Bryce Harper, Steven Strasburg and Juan Soto are long gone. 2025 sees the beginning of the Amed Rosario age!

Most towns on the MLB circuit can provide a weekend of sights and sounds, but Washington, D.C. could easily take a week or more of a tourist’s time. August is a beautiful time to visit the city’s national monuments and museums, political landmarks, and coastal sights.

After the team languished at RFK Stadium for its first four years, Nationals Park opened in 2008 with much fanfare and little flair. There isn’t a distinguishing component of the stadium, but it serves as a great venue to watch baseball along the Anacostia River. With its walkable open-air outfield concourse and its clean lines, Nationals Park focuses the attention on the actual game. With a drop in play and in attendance, will the Nationals need to re-think this strategy to attract fans? Or will this stadium continue to be a road teams’ heaven? The Nationals have had a losing record at home since that 2019 run, and opposing fans hope that momentum continues!

From muggy D.C. to Hot-lanta we go!

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Atlanta Braves – August 4-6
Truist Park - Capacity 41,084
2024 Attendance: 3,011,765 (Averaged 37,647 - ranked 4th out of 15 NL teams, 5th overall MLB)

2024 was a good year for Brewers fans who made the trek to Atlanta. Three games, 34 runs, and three solid victories. The Brewers are 9-12 in their trips to Truist Park since it opened in 2017. Given that 2024 was a sweep for the Brewers, that should tell you how poor they usually have done in Atlanta. With the August heat baking the field, the Brewers will have to bring their best to finish this road trip strong.

Baseball arrived in Atlanta from Milwaukee in 1966, but the national audience for the Braves arrived with TBS. Even a kid in the middle-of-nowhere South Dakota could watch the Braves, and this made their runs in the 1990's must-see TV. The Atlanta Fulton County Stadium we watched in 1991 made way for Turner Field (aka. Olympic Stadium) in 1997. The Braves' most recent move in 2017 took them to the suburbs, to mixed reviews. On the one hand, the Braves got a chance to build a baseball community center with neighborhood revenue-gathering machines. On the other hand, folks now need cars and cash to get to the games.

Truist Park resides in a mixed-use entertainment district called “The Battery.” Designed to curate the entire baseball consumer’s experience, it's arguably the wave of the future (see also Globe Life Field in Texas). The park is clean and modern in stadium style, with Hank Aaron tributes and historic moment monuments scattered throughout. “The Freeze” (@beatthefreeze) race between innings also looks intriguing.

Atlanta boasts the late Jimmy Carter's Presidential Library, MLK Jr. National Historical Park, and the Center for Puppetry Arts. I would steer clear of the puppets, but to each their own. The airport serves as a major hub, so travel to and from Atlanta shouldn't be hard, but travel to and from the ballpark will probably require renting a car or a large amount of Uber money.

After this 2240 mile adventure, the Brew Crew returns home to take on the Mets and Pirates. It's the dog days of summer, but who do you think will be top dog after this road trip?

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