BS Report: Braves Battle Back; Phillies Falter

Another good weekend for the Braves, as they take 2 or 3 games on the road against the Baltimore Orioles. The Braves are now seven and three since the All-Star break, with three straight series win, something that they did regularly early in the season and then kind of stopped when they had the skid in July. That reached all the way to the All-Star break.

They took 2 or 3 from Texas and three of four from San Diego, and then 2 or 3 over the weekend from Baltimore. They will now move on to New York for the first of a three game set with the Mets tonight, with Martin Perez on the mound for Atlanta. The Braves have opened up now a five and a half game lead on the Phillies, who did win last night here on 41 NBC over the Yankees.

But the Phillies have been struggling as of late. They are nine and 11 in July and now 11 and 13 going back to the final few days of June. Of course, that kind of put a halt to their great run. They run after Don Mattingly took over as the manager of the Phillies. So they slowed down a little bit.

It happens in baseball. It’s hard to keep up with a great pace. Like they run and like the Braves run earlier this season. We are now a week away from the trade deadline, and so we’ll see. Of course, what’s going to happen in the next seven days for the Braves. If they’ll add any more starting pitching. They desperately need to do so.

They probably need another reliever as well as, of course, Robert Suarez continues to be on the injured list. They are hopeful that he’ll be back and be okay. But anytime you’re dealing with an arm injury for a guy who’s pitched a lot, kind of worry about that a little bit. So we’ll see. If the Braves also were to perhaps add another reliever.

They will get Ronald Acuña Jr back of the line up to nine. He was activated off of the injured list. So he’ll be back. Brewer Hicklin sent back down to Triple-A and look before his injury. Ronald Acuña was not having a great year. He wasn’t having an awful year. It’s not like he was Sean Murphy or anything, but he was not having a great MVP type season like he did, of course, three years ago.

So now that he’s back and hopefully injury free, or at least somewhat healthy, the Braves need him to get back and kind of be that player that he was three years ago. He’ll definitely be a threat in the lineup, there’s no doubt about that. For the moment he steps in that lineup, he’ll be a threat. But then kind of having produce and get that offense going even more, they’ve been very good in the month of July, actually leading the sport in runs scored after being last in baseball and runs scored in the month of June.

So they’ve had a complete turnaround from their struggles offensively. But what kind of impact could Ronald Acuña have in that lineup that will be interesting to see as he returns tonight against the Mets? The starting pitching since the All-Star break has been pretty good, but again, they’re not having pitchers go deep into the games, which means you have to rely on your bullpen more.

You don’t want to run ruin your bullpen. And before mid-August, that’s why they’ve got to have a little bit of help before the trade deadline, and I’m sure they’ll probably get that at some point this week. So they’ll have three with New York in Citi Field up in New York, and then they’ll come back home for a four game series with Washington, a team that is now in third place behind the Phillies because the Marlins have had a rough go here as of late.

So game one between the Mets and the Braves tonight in New York.