Atlanta Braves: Winning the Series is Key to .500 Ball
By W. M. Lawson
The Atlanta Braves sit in 4th place in their division, and are 11 games out of 1st place. In order to improve that, it’s not just games they need to win.
This may seem pedantic. In fact, it could be a completely obvious observation. But it seems like it needs to be re-mentioned. Our beloved Atlanta Braves currently sport a record of 28-36. That’s good enough for 4th place in the NL East, and are 11 games behind division leading Washington. Future success isn’t all that far away, but something significant has to change.
The story of these 2017 Braves is one that is well-known to Braves fans. No need to re-hash the pitching woes and questions. No desire to re-hash the injury to MVP candidate Freddie Freeman. No purpose in lamenting the continuing and mostly miserable RISP (runners in scoring position) average for Atlanta.
There is, however, something very basic and fundamental that has to happen in order for the Atlanta Braves to be considered successful in 2017. For these purposes, I am going to define “success” as reaching and finishing .500 for the season. This writer would consider that a very positive and substantial movement for the home team.
In order to do that, one simple thing has to happen that has not happened: Atlanta needs to start winning series and not just random games. Now, that may seem simplistic. That’s because it is. Sometimes baseball is simple.
More from ATL All Day
- Atlanta Braves: Felix Has Already Shown Enough to Win a Rotation Spot
- Atlanta Braves Implode Late To Phillies, Cole Hamels Remains Sidelined
- Kyle Wright Shines As Folty Struggles In Atlanta Braves Loss To Red Sox
- Atlanta Hawks Sweep Back-to-Back Games Over Weekend
- Atlanta Braves: Grapefruit League Play Check Up
Leaving the month of April aside (every team is still figuring itself out), Atlanta has only won four series on its schedule. That’s in a month and a half. During that time Atlanta has lost or drawn seven series. Of those seven series lost or drawn, Atlanta won the opening game in 4 of them. In short, Atlanta has only won 1 series at home since the beginning of May.
The goal of finishing 2017 at .500 isn’t an untenable or unrealistic goal. But in order to do that, Atlanta has to start winning series. They don’t have to have a seven game win streak ( although, those are nice). They don’t need to have 4 players named to the All-Star team.
They do need win some series, though. They especially need to win home series.
Our beloved Atlanta Braves face the aforementioned division leading Washington Nationals today at 4:05 PM EDT at their place in a rubber match for the series. A win today, after again, winning the opening game of the series, would go along way to starting a series winning trend.