Dodgers star Freddie Freeman gave Dave Roberts 'PTSD' by exposing Braves fandom again

During the 2021 NLCS, the Dodgers never really looked like they stood a chance against the Braves. Atlanta came out the gate to win two games quickly; the Dodgers took Game 3, but they never caught up to the Braves' lead. The series went back and forth from there until the Game 6 finale, when Walker Buehler, after Max Scherzer refused to pitch that start, gave up all four of the runs the Braves needed to go on to the World Series, where they beat the Astros.

Then-Brave Eddie Rosario was responsible for driving in three of those runs on a homer off of Buehler in the bottom of the fourth. The Dodgers had already scored one run and AJ Pollock drove in another later on an RBI double, but it wasn't enough.

Rosario was crowned the NLCS MVP, but he's had a difficult fall from grace since then. This past offseason, he signed a minor league deal to join fellow 2021 Brave Freddie Freeman on the Dodgers.

Dave Roberts, when introducing Rosario to the team at the beginning of spring training, said, "We got Eddie Rosario here... he kicked our ass in 2021," to which Freeman responded with a "Woo! Oh, sorry guys. Too soon?"

As Dodgers reporter Stephen Nelson noted, "That triggered some PTSD in Dave Roberts."

Freddie Freeman couldn't hide his old allegiance to the Braves after Eddie Rosario joined the Dodgers

Rosario hit a seemingly impossible .560 with a 1.647 OPS during the NLCS, but Freeman was no slouch either. He hit .286 with a 1.063 OPS, easily making him the second-best guy in that Braves lineup. He hit two homers, both in Game 4 when the Dodgers lost by seven runs. The Braves went on to win the Fall Classic in six games, and Jorge Soler picked up the MVP award for that series.

That was Freeman's last season with the Braves; he became a free agent that year and, probably due to some mismanagement with his then-agent, couldn't agree on a new deal with Atlanta. The Dodgers were quick to scoop him up instead, and the rest is history.

Freeman has never hidden his fondness for the Braves, but it's hard to fault him after a season like that and with how messy his departure from the team seemed to be. The Dodgers wouldn't have won the World Series last year without him, so it's hard to begrudge him any lingering sentimenality from his time in Atlanta.