Acuna Matata

Come on, it was only a matter of time...

Yes, so...the thing about covering consecutive years of baseball is you become to grow accustomed to specific trends and things happening in different places every year. What tends to happen in month one of baseball is that at least one division will divide into a blockade of three or four teams all trying to compete, and one sole team that didn't really get that memo.

...Marlins didn't get the memo.

Like last year's AL Central, this year's NL East has sort of divided into a four-man war for first, with all four competing teams having close, similar records, and the only supreme separation between a 9-5 record and a 7-6 record being the amount of games being rained out. The Mets are currently in first place, which...I mean, good for them. Right behind are the Phillies, followed by the Braves, and then the Nationals. All four want this division badly, and all four are right there in it, even if the Nationals have the least to gain from a winning season (they just have a few more contracts to let loose).

The Braves, despite winning a NL East title last year, aren't heavy favorites. It's not like any huge pieces of this team have left, and Ronald Acuna is arguably better than he was last year. It's really just the way games have shaken out thus far. The Braves have been doing better than they were at the start, and it's helped that Josh Donaldson and Nick Markakis have started playing a ton better than they were during week one.

But...being really good at baseball may only give the Braves so much. They're gonna need some more insane luck on their side, because that's what the Mets have been working with. The Mets have a great pitching staff with only one real weak link; so do the Braves. The Mets have a youth-led lineup with a few veterans mixed in; so do the Braves. It's literally just luck and momentum that the Mets are using, and the Braves could easily catch some.

Interesting to see how it shakes out.

Coming Tomorrow- We all kind of thought his team would be tanking this year, but he's finally stepping up as a leader and bringing them to a decent start.