The Atlanta Braves’ second half schedule requires them to be road warriors as they attempt to chase down the Mets.
Now that the All-Star festivities are behind us, the 2022 season’s “second half” begins tomorrow and it’s worth a look at what the Atlanta Braves’ schedule has coming up… particularly as it compares to the Mets’ schedule.
With their 56-38 record, Atlanta has 68 games remaining, but it is heavily weighted towards road games: 38 of them, to be exact… an 8-game spread.
This team has played well in both home and road situations, overall, as they are 31-20 at Truist and 25-18 when out of the state.
This doesn’t tell the whole story, though, since the club is 33-11 since June began, and that included a number of road contests to begin that stretch – albeit largely against second-division teams.
For their part, the Mets (58-35) have 69 games left on their schedule, but theirs breaks down quite differently: 38 home games and just 31 on the road as they come down the stretch.
They are 24-18 since June began, but their schedule was brutal overall. Still, they have been better at home.
When it comes to forecasting the future, the devil is in the details, so we can’t just leave it at that.
Long Division
The Braves still have 12 sets of games coming against NL East divisional foes; the Mets have 11, but the sum total of games involved is 41 for both teams… 12 of them come against one another.
Happily, 7 of those 12 will take place at Truist Park.
Otherwise…
- vs. PHILADELPHIA
- ATL: 12 games (5 at home)
- NYM: 7 games (3 at home)
- vs. MIAMI
- ATL: 10 games (3 at home)
- NYM: 8 games (2 at home)
- vs. WASHINGTON
- ATL: 6 games (3 at home)
- NYM: 9 games (6 at home)
- BRAVES PLAY (3 games each unless otherwise noted)…
- LA Angels
- Arizona
- Boston (2 times)
- Houston
- Pittsburgh
- St. Louis
- Colorado
- Oakland (2)
- Seattle
- San Francisco
- METS PLAY (3 games each unless otherwise noted):
- San Diego
- Yankees (two sets of 2 games each)
- Cincinnati
- Colorado (4)
- LA Dodgers
- Pittsburgh (a 3-game set, then a 4 later on)
- Cubs
- Milwaukee
This looks a bit worse for the Mets, as they have to face the Padres, Dodgers, Yankees, and Brewers… all clubs with strong post-season aspirations – but it’s not nearly the kind of disadvantage they experienced in June. Plus, they get Cincy and Pittsburgh (twice) to balance things.
The Braves get the Red Sox, Astros, Cardinals, Mariners, and Giants; though it’s less clear about how tough all of these will be by the time those matchups occur.
Atlanta does have Seattle and San Fran as part of their last West coast road trip, which seems to add a measure of difficulty along the way.
The Impact of Trade Winds
If there’s a wild card in these schedules, it could be Juan Soto. If he’s traded in the next couple of weeks (that looks likely), his destination could impact the fortunes of whichever team he lands with (and if I were to handicap that race, my money would be on a Pacific Time Zone team).
That might increase the schedule difficulty for either the Mets or Braves… depending on the acquiring club.
On the other side of that coin, all 9 of the Mets’ remaining games vs. Washington come after the trade deadline, so Washington could very well play like a AAA club by then.
Conversely, as noted before, the Braves meet the Nationals only 6 more times.
Likewise, the Braves face an (almost certainly) depleted Oakland team twice more, while the Mets see them 3 times.
Overall: the home schedule disparity definitely leans toward the Mets, as does their divisional schedule difficulty.
Atlanta’s recent momentum is definitely in their favor, though we have to await the impact of whatever each team chooses to do at the trade deadline to see how their respective rosters improve.
It’s still evident that Atlanta has not yet seen everyone playing well at the same time, either, so there is room for improvement even before trade considerations.
The Mets’ pitching health is also going to be a major factor.
My expectations overall? This could come down to the last week of the season: the Braves had a big scheduling advantage in June; the rest of the way leans to the other side and the Braves will have to overcome that to avoid a Wild Card berth.
From this list, you’d have to conclude “Advantage Mets” since the Braves have more games left against their tougher divisional opponents (Also of note: all of the last 6 series’ that Atlanta plays are exclusively against the NL East).
As for the ‘non-conference’ portion of the schedule…