The Morning TiltTuesday, September 29, 2026

Two Atlanta clubs begin something this morning, in two different states. One of them can be eliminated by Wednesday afternoon; the other does not play a game that counts until October 21.

Braves

Chris Sale against Jesús Luzardo. Philadelphia at Truist Park, 2 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock, with Game 2 tomorrow in the same window and a third game Thursday if the series needs one. Sale finished 14-9 with a 2.16 ERA and 200 strikeouts, and he made 27 appearances this season, all of them starts. Luzardo went 14-5 with a 2.86 ERA and 221 strikeouts in 29 starts across 30 appearances. Atlanta finished 94-68 and won the East as the third seed; Philadelphia finished 88-74 and arrived as the sixth.

Atlanta won the season series 9-4. The number that applies to this particular week is smaller. Every game of this series is at Truist Park, and at Truist Park the two clubs split six meetings 4-2. Philadelphia won the most recent one, on September 13.

Ellis has the 420 innings and 75 starts the injured list already took, and what that leaves to cover three games. Dex has finally named a winner, and he is less sure of it than he was Sunday night.

Hawks

Camp opened this morning in Nashville and closes Friday. Four days, then a preseason opener at home against Memphis on Monday, October 5, and nothing that counts until October 21 at Orlando. Four days is not enough time to build anything. It is enough time to settle who plays on Monday.

The Hawks' first week of work happens in another state, in the week this city is not looking at basketball, which is either bad timing or the point of holding camp somewhere else. Last season ended 46-36 and in a first-round exit, and nothing that happens in a Tennessee gym this week will tell you whether that number moves.

Two players on the roster, CJ McCollum and Jock Landale, are in the last year of their contracts. The biggest salary in the room belongs to Jalen Johnson at $30 million, and nobody is above it. That is an unusual sentence to be able to write about a team with playoff expectations.

Falcons

The quarterback market resolved on Monday afternoon and it resolved without Atlanta. The Giants acquired J.J. McCarthy from Minnesota for a 2027 fifth-round pick, per the club's own release, with Jameis Winston starting in front of him and Jaxson Dart on injured reserve. Tilt spent the weekend arguing about what a quarterback is worth. New York paid a fifth. Atlanta's own quarterback question did not change on Monday; the market's answer to it did. Miles has what that price says about the market Atlanta was trying to sell into.

Atlanta is 1-2 and coming off 35-14 at Green Bay. Next is New Orleans, who are also 1-2, on Monday, October 5 at 8:15 p.m. on ESPN. Baltimore at Atlanta on Sunday, October 11 is still on the Sunday night schedule as of this morning, 8:20 p.m. on NBC.

Atlanta United

The table is the only live thing here, and Atlanta's row in it has not moved: 14th of 15 in the Eastern Conference, 27 points from 27 matches, 7-14-6, minus 13 on goal difference. FC Cincinnati visit on Saturday, October 10.

The gap to the playoff line is six points, and it is worth knowing why that is a more honest number than most of what sits around it. New York City FC hold ninth, the last place that qualifies, on 33 points from the same 27 matches Atlanta have played. The clubs stacked either side of them have not all played as many. Red Bull New York are eighth on the same 33 points, FC Cincinnati tenth on 33 and D.C. United eleventh on 30, and each of the three holds a match in hand; so does Chicago, further up. New York City FC do not. The club holding the place Atlanta wants is the one at that line Atlanta can measure itself against without an asterisk.

Seven matches remain and Cincinnati is the first of them. Atlanta are still mathematically alive, which is true and is doing less work than it sounds like. What those seven matches are for is the question worth asking now, and the standings are not going to answer it.

One more thing.

Two of these four clubs have nothing on their schedules this week, and both of them come back on the same night. The Hawks open the preseason at home against Memphis on Monday, October 5, at 7 p.m. The Falcons kick off at New Orleans that same evening at 8:15. Half this city spends this week watching baseball, and then gets its own season handed back on a Monday. What kind of Monday that is depends on a series that starts at two o'clock this afternoon.