Every year, the schedule has some quirks. In 2021, though, the Atlanta Braves’ schedule has some late traps included.
There are always some guarantees in the baseball schedule: the Atlanta Braves will play their own division rivals 18 or 19 times each. They will play one American League division (the AL East). They will have home-and-home sets against the rest of the National League.
With that, we tend to look for the oddities… the Western road trips or the extended road trips.
This year… there’s some noteworthy issues in the last two weeks.
Atlanta Braves early on – not too bad
APRIL starts the club on the road: Philadelphia and Washington… a pair of tests that could allow us to see immediately what we’re up against in the NL East.
Coming home on April 9, the Braves get the Phillies again, followed by the Marlins. Then it’s a visit to see the Cubs and Yankees.
Back home, the D’Backs and Cubs come to Truist Park before 1 game at the Blue Jays (in Dunedin, FL) to end the month. Overall… not a terrible opening month, particularly for travel.
MAY finds the Braves continuing a road trip in Florida against the Jays before going back to Washington.
The next homestand sees the Phillies again and the Blue Jays.
Things get a bit odd for the rest of the month:
- a 3-game road trip to Milwaukee
- Back home against the Mets and Pirates… finishing up a 13-games-in-a-row sequence.
- A day off followed by 2 games in Boston
- A day off followed by 3 games against the Mets.
Memorial Day (May 31) finds Atlanta back home against the Nationals… starting a 4-game set bringing us into…