With last night’s offensively-inept performance in Philadelphia in a 1-0 loss, the Braves dropped a half-game in the NL East to the idle New York Mets with the deficit now standing at 1.5 games with time running out in the regular season.
Professional athletes are conditioned to take things one game at a time, but as fans, it’s impossible not the look ahead to the upcoming series between the NL East rivals beginning next Friday at Truist Park. On 92.9 The Game’s The Steakhouse, Steak Shapiro & Sandra Golden took a look at the current playoff picture and wondered aloud what the division lead could be by the time first pitch rolls around on September 30th.
The Braves continue their series with the Phillies—who are also fighting for positioning in the wild card race—tonight while the Mets open a series with the Oakland A’s. Next, the Braves will travel to Washington and the Mets will host the Marlins for two games. Atlanta will play an extra game in this stretch but both teams get the day off before the highly-anticipated series begins. Shapiro mentioned that he believes the Mets’ lead in the division will be at two games heading into the series, but that’s okay.
“Just be within three and then, you know that if you sweep the series, you’re back in first place,” he said.
Both Shapiro and Golden lamented that the Braves missed a huge opportunity to gain ground and potentially take over the lead in the division during their recent west coast road trip with three straight losses while the Mets were struggling against bad teams.
While it feels like the Braves-Mets series will wrap up the regular season, three games remain on both schedules after the fact. The Braves will travel to Miami while the Mets will be in Queens facing the Nationals.