So. To recap. The past 8 games, the Braves have been without Nick Markakis, Austin Riley, Ender Inciarte and Dansby Swanson. The past 5, they've been without Brian McCann.
...all of those games have been wins. Their next 5 games are against Colorado, Toronto and the White Sox. So maybe we should start paying attention to these guys, seeing as we're gonna be spending some of October with them anyway.
The Braves have developed a sort of unstoppable mentality that kinda has to be respected. The main lineup pieces get injured, and the rest of the lineup gets even better- Josh Donaldson moves his home run total to 32, easily having his best season since 2015. Acuna and Albies continue annihilating the ball. Freddie Freeman notches his 105th RBI, which is the most in baseball. And then the bench comes alive making up for the injured guys- Tyler Flowers gets some nice reps in starting for McCann, Matt Joyce and Adam Duvall FINALLY start doing consistent things starting in the outfield, and a mixture of Johan Camargo, Charlie Culberson and Adeiny Hechavarria have been subbing in for Swanson. Hecha was probably the most consistent backup, but now that Swanson's back it doesn't matter as much.
Even better, the fact that the Braves could yank anyone they wanted from free agency, stick them into the mix and act like it was the plan all along. Hechavarria was an earlier try, but Billy Hamilton came over last week from KC and has actually been hitting for average. Francisco Cervelli looked like his career was over after leaving Pittsburgh, but he's plugged into the lineup as a starting catcher and he hits 3 RBIs, including 2 doubles. I had no idea the Braves lineup would have this sort of 'anybody can succeed here' mentality to it, but here we are.
Hell, even Mike Foltynewicz, after bringing up the rear of the rotation for weeks, is FINALLY pitching better, and is working to get his ERA below 5 again. I think he can do it, as his last few starts have been alright. The other four (Soroka, Teheran, Fried and Keuchel) we don't need to worry about. And despite a higher ERA than promised, Mike Melancon is getting back to his 9th inning greatness in Atlanta, even if they'd traded for Shane Greene thinking HE'D be the closer. I'll take a consistent Melancon, though.
All these things are coming together as we head into September. Once again, even if LA is the showier NL team, we may be overlooking a serious postseason threat in the Braves. They could honestly upset the Dodgers and make a World Series this year. That's how good they look right now.
Coming Tomorrow- His team had a brief scare, but...they hit like 90 more home runs and now they're back on track.
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