“Just show some love to some people,” Pederson insists. Though it may at times be awkward, the proof seems to be in the pearls. Be it sipping on glasses of vino during the NLCS on-field celebration to his jewelry choices, to telling the world, “I’m a bad MF!” his choices always stand out. “I think you need one of those guys on your team.” I think he comes in and makes everything light in the clubhouse, in the dugout. “Like he said, we were searching, for sure. “He keeps it light,” says third baseman Austin Riley. So, if Joctober is real, so, too, is Pederson’s mojo? 862 career playoff OPS – in a whopping 74 games – far outshines his.
#Play word mojo gold on yahoo games series#
Pederson, meanwhile, slugged a pair of home runs to sink Milwaukee in the NL Division Series and added another against his old team in the NL Championship Series. Yet the Braves won four of their final five regular season games after Pederson’s pearls lit up the night, and seven of their 10 playoff games to reach the World Series for the first time since 1999. Mojo, of course, is highly subjective, and the true reason why Pederson donned the pearl necklace – and whatever he does to fire up the squad behind closed doors – remain a mystery. So we did everything we can to get the mojo going.” They were already good, but I think it just they'd been kicked down a couple times and a couple injuries, and the mojo wasn't there. “And we kind of continued to instill the confidence in these great players. We're going to do everything we can to change it.’ “(Catcher) Stephen Vogt got there a day or two after me, and we were just talking about how weird and quiet it was and he was like, ‘Man, I'm too old to put up with this.
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“It was a little sad and quiet in the locker room, but I was like, ‘This isn't the team that I looked at across from the other side,” says Pederson. Pederson, who can shift from dry and deadpan to blue quicker than he can turn on a fastball, couldn’t believe these were the Braves who took his Dodgers to seven games last October. The Braves have reached the World Series in large part due to their ability to move past the loss of All-Star outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr., who suffered a season-ending knee injury July 11, prompting Pederson’s acquisition five days later.Īnd while his clutch postseason hitting already tagged him with a nickname – Joctober is a perfect fit – there’s another tag that probably better dovetails with his style choices and what he’s brought to the Braves.Īfter a couple of weeks learning the ways of the Braves clubhouse, Pederson, who played in six postseasons as a Dodger, sensed the still-demoralized Braves needed a lift. So, too, is his loudly bleached hair, making that man impossible to miss whether he’s in the Atlanta Braves lineup or not. HOUSTON – As ornaments go, Joc Pederson’s now-legendary pearl necklace turned out to be a fantastic choice. Watch Video: How Braves' Joc Pederson became the star of October