BS Report: Braves Hold their Ground Against the Phillies

Well. The Atlanta Braves split the series with the Philadelphia Phillies over the weekend in Philadelphia, and while it would have been nice to have won that game on Monday and taken the series three out of four, they’ll take a split because obviously the Phillies were likely going into that series, believing that if they took three out of four games, they would have knocked a couple of games off of the lead for Atlanta, and then they would have gone to Atlanta this weekend and hope to win the series and knock it down.

Even more. Well, by splitting the series, you pretty much lead with the same lead that you came in there with, which is four games. But four games are now off the schedule, which is in the favor of Atlanta. And the Braves lead this season series with Philadelphia. So while the Braves do have a four game lead, technically it really is five because they have the tiebreaker.

So the Phillies have a lot of work to do in these final 18 games of the season. If they want to win this division. But the Braves had great starting pitching over the weekend. There’s no question about that. The E.R.A. For the starters was 2.50. They allowed only six earned runs in the four games, but the offense scored only 12 runs and had 25 hits.

So that concern that many of us had going into the series and into the stretch drive about whether the Braves offense can take care of a very good starting pitching remains, because the pitching they saw in Philadelphia over the last couple of days will be the pitching. They will likely see the same type of pitching, the same caliber of pitching they’ll see in October, whether it’s from the Phillies or any other team in the National League, or if they were to get the World Series and face an American League team as well.

So that offense continues to sputter along, have spurts of really good games where they do what they need to do, like they did in the eighth inning the other day when they kind of exploded on the Phillies. But look, now Matt Olson is struggling, right? So they’ve got to get Matt Olson going. And the key for this entire season for the rays is going to be to be hot at the right time.

This is a really good team. And they’ve won a lot of games and they’ve had the lead for a long time, the National League East. But look there’s nothing really separating any of these teams in baseball. You might say that Milwaukee, while they have the best record in baseball, could be separating themselves from the others. Well, that may be the case, but they’ve never been in this situation before.

So how are those kids going to do in the October playoffs? But really, when you look at all the teams in baseball, there’s they’re really close. So the team that is the hottest going into October, into the playoffs and then remains hot, that’s going to be the team that’s probably going to win the World Series. The Braves have a four game lead on the Phillies in the National League Eastern Division, 13.5 over the Marlins and the race for the best record in baseball.

Milwaukee does have a game and a half lead on the Dodgers. A three game lead on Tampa Bay in the lead over Atlanta is now three, and a half. The Braves are two back of the Dodgers, who beat the Reds last night in Los Angeles. So I wish they could catch the Dodgers. And of course they have the tiebreaker with LA because the head to head record.

tonight at home against Tampa Bay. Freddy Peralta will be on the mound for the race against AJ Mitchell, who needs a good performance for Atlanta. Game time is at 715 and you can hear it on the SuperStations.