The Braves and Mets, with three and a half weeks left to go, are dead even. A team that began the season with everyone, and a team that began the season a punchline, are tied in the wild card standings. The last month of the season will decide who gets the last playoff spot and gets to play a team that very well could be the Brewers in a wild card series. The stakes couldn't be higher. If the Mets lose, they managed to undo the goodwill of the entire fanbase by not making the next leap from novelty to runaway.
...whereas if the Braves lose a year after a monolithic regular season, they may never recover. If you have your best players under team control til the end of the decade, a Cy Young performance from a guy who's always been a bridesmaid his whole career, an 100-RBI season from a guy everybody wrote off, and two excellent seasons from starters who weren't even supposed to make the team, and you don't make the playoffs, then what are you even doing?
Injuries have dulled the point of the Braves this year. Without Ronald Acuna, Ozzie Albies, Spencer Strider and Austin Riley, there's just not as much of a punch. Michael Harris is back, which is nice, and he does have 15 RBIs and 4 homers since coming back, but...he's not hitting for average. Orlando Arcia's season is a disappointment after last season's ASG campaign. Same with Sean Murphy, he's hitting around .200 and seems to just not be on this year. Matt Olson's got 25 home runs, which is nice, but last season he hit 54. And quite obviously Bryce Elder has struggled to find his 2023 mojo.
Like, it is nice that the pitching, for the most part, has kept things moving, people like Sale, Fried, Lopez and Schwellenbach are keeping offenses down. But this offense can only do so much without its core intact. You have Jorge Soler, Whit Merrifield, Gio Urshela, Ramon Laureano and Adam Duvall trying to contribute something and not really doing much. There's only two people on this team, active, with more than 50 RBIs and 20 home runs. And it's Marcell Ozuna and Matt Olson. It can't just be on those guys to keep the offense going, this isn't New York.
The Braves are still favored to take the spot right now, because they're built better, and have better overall luck than the Mets. But I think if you asked your asked your average sports fan, they'd want the Braves to take the fall. They're do. The Mets sliding into their space would be a great underdog story, especially in a year where the Braves don't really deserve the glory. So with all these games left to play, there's no telling who'll be standing on the spot when the season ends, but if it is the Braves, they're gonna need to do a lot of lifting to prove themselves in a postseason of titans.
Coming Tomorrow- One of those players who I can never tell when he's gonna be back on. He was miserable the last two years, and now a competitor's using his hot streak to their advantage.
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