The Braves took 2 of 3 from the Pirates, making it 5 of 6 for the year vs. Pittsburgh. More importantly, a lot of their sticky gears seem to be loosening up.
If you didn’t think this Atlanta Braves‘ season was becoming “real” before, then how are your feeling about that… now? Or is it still too soon? Let’s discuss…
The Braves now have a 4 game lead on the Phillies. Neither team is exactly making a performance statement recently (Atlanta is 5-5, Philly 4-6 over their last 10 games), but it is significant enough that the Phils simply are not able to gain any traction in their tepid pursuit of the division crown.
In fact, at this point, Philadelphia sits not just in 2nd place, but out of playoff consideration all together. They would have to pass 3 teams just to be a Wild Card game participant. As of today, that honor is held by the Brewers and Cardinals (Milwaukee up ½ game on St. Louis with the Phillies 3½ back of the redbirds).
Atlanta is now 16 games above .500 and has 26 games remaining on their schedule. It has been stated (via Fox Sports South after Sunday’s game) that a Braves’ 13-13 record for the rest of the year would force Philadelphia to go 18-8 to win the crown.
Math is involved
That’s actually being a bit glib. 17-9 would be enough for a tie. Such ties are not broken by head-to-head records, either: a 163rd game would be played to determine the division winner, hosted by the season-series leader.
At this point, the Braves hold a 7-5 series lead and Philly would have to win 5 of the last 7 meetings to flip that criterion.
So the next question I had was “has Philadelphia even managed a 17-9 record at any point this year?” The answer to that is yes: most recently, this was a 26-game stretch that lasted 7 games after the All-Star break. They also pulled it off starting on June 10 (overlapping the range already mentioned) and again during most of April.
So yes: they can do it, and a favorable schedule supports them despite their recent floundering. They will see Miami twice, the Mets twice, the Nationals once…. before finishing with the Braves sandwiched around the Rockies.
Meanwhile, Atlanta needs to get through this week (Boston and Arizona) with the same kind of energy that buoyed them this weekend. Atlanta could be catching both at the right time: Boston is “only” 5-5 in their last 10 while Arizona is 3-7.
So all that basically means that yeah – this will come down to the end.