After digging themselves into a huge hole to start the season, the Atlanta Braves find themselves back at the top of the NL East standings.
But the NL East is still far from being decided as the Atlanta Braves hold the slimmest of leads over the New York Mets entering Saturday by half a game.
The fact the Braves are even in a position to win the NL East is pretty incredible considering they were 23-27 after the first two months of the season and were 10.5 games back in the standings.
At that time, they also had a -16 run differential.
Since then, the Braves have gone 64-24 and they now have a positive run differential of +162.
That’s quite the turnaround.
During that same time, the Mets are 53-35 and have increased their run differential from +72 to +126.
It hasn’t been a matter of the Mets choking and allowing the Braves back in the race, it’s a matter of the Braves playing incredible baseball for three-plus months.
Braves NL East: How Do They Remain on Top
There is no question that if the Braves are going to win the NL East, they’re going to need some more help from below .500 teams.
They’ve already gotten some help from the Nats, Pirates, and Marlins allowing the Braves to jump over the Mets in the standings.
But they’re going to need more as the Mets play the softest schedule down the stretch facing the Marlins (x4), Cubs (x3), Pirates (x4), A’s (x3), and Nats (x3).
They only play six games against teams above .500 the rest of the way. Three of those are against the Braves, and the other three are against a Brewers team that is currently imploding.
If the Mets win all of the series they have left except the Braves series, they’ll go 16-7 down the stretch — that seems like a pretty realistic and maybe even conservative record for them down the stretch.
That would give them a final record of 103-59.
Atlanta would have to go 17-7 the rest of the season to get to 104 wins. They would have to do that against a much tougher schedule playing two more in Seattle against the Mariners, Giants (x3), Phillies (x7), Nats (x6), Mets (x3), and Marlins (x3).
Even if the Braves are able to win all of their remaining series that would give them 16 wins.
They have just 3 series losses since the All-Star break, so that’s possible. But they may need to sweep a series or two as well.
It’s a tough task, but again, just having the chance after the way they played the first two months shows how great this team has played.
The tie-breaker comes down to head-to-head records. The Braves trail there right now 7-9 and would have to sweep the Mets in their final meeting to own the head-to-head record.
While it’s great to see Atlanta at the top right now, this race is far from over. They’ll need to continue playing down the stretch the way they have for the last three-plus months and hope they get some more unexpected help.