After erasing an early 2-0 deficit and beating the Washington Nationals 5-2 last night the Atlanta Braves are 21-21, and at .500 for the first time this season after starting 0-7 and being 5-13 at one point in the season as well.
However, the Braves didn’t just start playing well recently, but their record is just now starting to reflect how well they’ve been playing, and The Morning Shift talked about that earlier today.
“Their bats have been not great, but they’re not playing bad baseball, defensively they’ve played pretty good, I know that they almost cost themselves the other night, but defensively they’ve played pretty good and the pitching has been very good as of late, so when you hear people say oh the Braves are a bad baseball team and they’re just playing bad baseball, based on what? Because this team has been, I think they’re playing like .600 ball right now since that start, that’s pretty freaking good.” Beau Morgan said
Later on in the show Beau doubled down and talked about how the Braves are playing good baseball right now, but it just hasn’t come together the way Braves’ fans have wanted it to.
“There’s this narrative and it’s easy to see and believe because you remember what was the first seven games of April. You remember the first 18 games of the season which was 5-13 baseball.” Beau said
Beau finished his thought by saying “The Braves are not playing bad baseball, they’re actually playing good baseball, it's just not all come together the way we want it to”.
Atlanta is 21-14 since they started 0-7, 16-8 since they were 5-13, and in case you were wondering that’s a .600 winning percentage and a 97 win pace. However, at this point in the season, and at that pace the Braves wouldn’t have enough games left to finish with 97 wins, but if they keep winning at the current rate they have been they do have enough games to where they could end up with 93 wins, and if this team just gets 90 wins, nonetheless 93, and makes the postseason that would be a historic feat in itself.
No team in MLB history has made the postseason after starting 0-7, and only five teams, the fifth being this year’s Braves team, have gotten back to .500 at any point during the season after starting 0-7, but if the Braves have proven anything over this 28 game stretch it’s that they aren’t a bad baseball team, they are a good baseball team that got off to a bad start, and at this rate that bad start probably won’t even keep them out of the playoffs.
