It’s a hard baseball town to please, Atlanta. The Braves come home riding a 13-game winning streak, one of three 70-win teams in the majors, and only a half-game behind  Pittsburgh for the best record in baseball.

  Yet there are some – not just Braves fans, but also national pundits -- who can’t help but remember all the postseason trips that ended abruptly for Atlanta, and who question whether this team can do it when it counts most, whether they have the aces to match up with other teams in the playoffs, or a consistent enough offense to thrive against great postseason pitching, etc.

  This would probably be a good time to point out something I gleaned from some numbers-crunching this morning: The Braves have the majors’ best record and easily the best ERA over their past 162 regular-season games, at 98-64 with a 3.09.

  Next-best record over their past 162 belongs to Oakland (97-65), followed by a trio at 95-67: Detroit, Tampa Bay, Baltimore. St. Louis is 92-70 (3.54 ERA), Texas is  91-71, the Dodgers are 89-73 (3.34 ERA) and Pittsburgh and the Yankees are 85-77. The Nats? They’re 81-81 over their past 162.

 Anyway, Atlanta is a hard town to please when it comes to baseball.

 Wasn’t always that way, of course. It became so when the Braves won 14 consecutive division titles while winning just one World Series, and while owner Ted Turner spent freely on free agents to plug any holes in the lineup or pitching staff.

 Since that run ended, the Braves and their fans have seen not just how the other half lives, but how the other 90-some percent lived. In other words, how just about any team without the revenue streams of the Yankes live, year after year, with some pockets of Red Sox and Giants excellence mixed in. Now the Dodgers, Angels and a few other teams are spending huge sums funded by their massive new TV deals, but that hasn’t yet altered the competitive landscape, in terms of wins and losses.

 (If there’s one thing the current season has shown us, once again, it’s that spending twice as much as another team in baseball isn’t even close to a guarantee you’ll do better. Just look at the payrolls for teams such as the Phillies, Yankees and Angels, compared to those of the Pirates, Rays and, yes, the Braves. But that’s another story.)

 Fact is, all but perhaps two or three major league franchises would’ve gladly traded positions with the Braves for that 15-year division-title run period (there was no division title awarded in the strike-shortened 1994 season), and most could only dream of ever having anything remotely similar to that kind of perennial-contender status for such an extended period.

  But blowing that World Series against the Yankees, and getting thrashed in a couple other postseason series, entirely altered the way that Braves’ run of success was viewed by many. Which is understandable. Those things tend to linger. A long, long time.

  And so, getting there and coming up short so many times can cause many in the team’s fan base to become jaded, and cause many outside observers or fans of other teams to develop a jaundiced view of the organization. Again, entirely understandable.

  But being competitive year after year, going to the postseason every season and having a shot at the ring? That’s something few teams in any sport ever get to experience for a decade or more. And something they all want to do, even if it inevitably also means more heartache when you come up short.

  Teams that finish 15-25 games out of first place don’t have heartache in the end. They just feel various stages of mind-numbing irrelevance and inferiority for most of the spring, summer and fall. Better to have climbed the mountain, slipped near the top and felt the pain of that fall than to have only watched it all happen from down below, right? I mean, as long as the fall doesn’t kill or maim you, obviously.

  So where were we?

 Oh, yes. Back to Atlanta being a tough town to please, when it comes to baseball.

  There’s been enough time now between that division-title run and today to chance the perception, at least somewhat. Enough time spent in what is known as reality for most franchises – fighting every year to try to scratch out a postseason berth, rather than viewing the playoffs as a birthright – to better appreciate first place and winning a division title again.

 But still – and this is where we finally get to the point I set out to make about the current team – there are plenty of folks who doubt this Braves team, and who tend to point more at what they lack than what they have. Those who seem more inclined to discuss why this team isn’t built for playoff success, rather than the fact it has the second-best record in the majors.

  Some will almost dismiss the fact that the Braves (70-45) have built a ridiculous 15-1/2-game lead over the second-place Nationals with seven weeks left in the season, by attributing that more to the woeful underperformance of Washington and Philadelphia than to anything the Braves have done.

  While true that the lead wouldn’t be nearly as great if the Nats or Phillies had lived up to expectations, the fact is, the Braves are on pace for a 98.6-win season. And please find me the preseason prognosticator who predicted the Braves would win more than 95-97 games.

  I was one of those who’ve said for much of the season that the Braves’ strikeout proclivity, and poor hitting with runners in scoring position, could really bite them in the rears in the postseason when they run up against good-to-great pitching every game. Well, that’s changed in recent weeks.

   The Braves have cut back significantly on strikeouts in recent weeks – they were second in the league in June, seventh in July, and are currently sixth in August – and, more importantly, they steadily raised their average with runners in scoring position, hiking it by about 30 points since early summer. They went from last in the league in that category, to third-highest (.257) behind the Cardinals and Rockies.

   Instead of having only two or perhaps three hitters going strong at any given period, as was the case from about the third week of the season through early July, the Braves now have a majority of their hitters healthy and doing what was expected of them. When all the pistons are firing, it’s as formidable a lineup as we thought it might be when it was assembled.

  And through it all, there’s the pitching. The biggest reason the Braves are where they are, without question, is the pitching.

  The bullpen is the best in baseball, with the game’s top closer and deepest group of top-shelf setup men in Luis Avilan, Jordan Walden, Scott Downs and David Carpenter.  The 2.40 bullpen ERA is nearly a half-run better than the majors’ next best (Kansas City, 2.82), the .212 opponents’ average is five points better than the next-best (Pittsburgh, .217), and the stunning .589 opponents’ OPS is a full 28 points better than the next-best (Pittsburgh, .617).

  Braves relievers have allowed just 16 home runs, while the next-lowest total is 23 homers allowed, and 17 teams have bullpens that have allowed more than 30 homers.

  The starting rotation doesn’t have the marquee No. 1 pitcher, the dominant, Cy Young-type ace like a Clayton Kershaw, Matt Harvey or Adam Wainwright. But how many teams do? And I dare say, the ascendant combination of Mike Minor and Julio Teheran is about as good a young starting duo as you’ll find on any team.

  We won’t know how they respond to the klieg lights  and the postseason pressure until they’re thrust onto that stage, simply because neither of them has ever been in a playoff game. In fact, the only Braves starter who has is Kris Medlen, and that was just one game – he started last year’s Wild Card loss to the Cardinals.

  So that’s a legit concern. Unless the Braves somehow pull off a waiver trade for an experienced postseason starter, they are going to have to lean on Tim Hudson’s postseason experience, which he’ll have to dole out in the clubhouse or on the bench while his broken ankle heals.

  Their catcher, however, does have postseason experience. And don’t underestimate the value of that knowledge and been-there, done-that leadership of Brian McCann. He wants badly not just to get back to the postseason, but to make a deep playoff run in what many of us expect will be his last season with the Braves before an American League team makes him an offer too great to refuse.

  This is a real good team, folks. When they’re on, these Braves can beat anybody, as they’ve shown recently with sweeps of the Cardinals and Rockies at home and the Phillies and Nats on the road during a 13-game winning streak they bring back to Turner Field for long homestand that begins tonight against the Marlins.

  Enough of them also have the memories of the Sept. 2011 collapse and of last year’s Wild Card loss to know better than to take anything for granted. For that reason, I think we’ll probably see them stay focused and sharp down the stretch, even if the lead goes to 20 games. They know that beating out Pittsburgh for home-field advantage could be significant for a team with the majors’ best home record (the Braves have won 30 of their past 40 home games entering the weekend series).

BRAVES LINEUP Saturday

1. Heyward rf
2. JUpton lf
3. Freeman 1b
4. Gattis c
5. CJohnson 3b
6. Uggla 2b
7. BUpton cf
8. Simmons ss
9. Wood p

 • Streaking Braves: The Braves have posted a 2.23 ERA while hitting .298 with 14 homers and 77 runs during their 13-game winning streak, the longest for the team since a 15-game streak from April 16 to May 2, 2000. They had a 1.98 ERA and hit .256 with 18 homers and 77 runs during that streak (yes, same scoring total as the current streak).

  During the 15-game streak in 2000, Braves starters have 14 wins: Tom Glavine, Terry Mulholland, Kevin Millwood and Bruce Chen had three apiece, and Greg Maddux had two.

  The other win? It went to Luis Rivera in the only decision of his major league career, which consisted of six relief appearances, all that season (five with Atlanta, one with Baltimore).

  Relievers have four decisions during the current 13-game winning streak, including two for Luis Avilan, one for Scott Downs, and for David Carpenter.

  Only four starters have wins during the current streak: Medlen has three wins, while Minor, Teheran and rookie Alex Wood have two apiece.

  The Braves had two days off during the 15-game winning streak in 2000, which ended with five wins in San Diego and Los Angeles. Maddux got the decision in a 6-4 loss to the Dodgers and Carlos Perez in the series finale to end the streak, the first of six losses in eight games for the Braves.

  Much like in 2000, there was nothing before this current streak that indicated the Braves were about to go on a winning spree. In 2000, they were 5-6 with a 4.50 ERA in the 11 games prior to the 15-game tear. And they went 2-6 with a 4.72 ERA in the eight games after the streak.

  This season, the Braves were 5-7 with a .237 batting average and 4.72 ERA in their 12 games before the winning streak began.

 • Speaking of Chen: Of course, the only pitcher from that 2000 streak who’s still plying his trade is Chen, now 36 and enjoying a resurgence in Kansas City, with the Royals, who’ve won 14 of their past 16.

  Chen was 11-14 with a  5.07 ERA for the Royals last season, and lost a battle with Luis Mendoza for the fifth-starter spot this spring. But after Mendoza struggled, Chen moved back into the rotation.

  All he’s done in five starts since the move is post a 1.14 ERA and .147 opponents’ average, with 23 strikeouts and four walks in 31-2/3 innings. He’s allowed two or fewer runs in six or more innings  in five consecutive starts, the longest such stretch of his career.

    “I guess it’s not how you throw, but where you throw it,” Boston’s Jonny Gomes said after Chen (5-0) pitched 7-2/3 scoreless innings to beat the Red Sox and Jon Lester on Thursday. “He worked both sides of the plate, got ahead, got in on our hands and then went away. He throws three pitches with 6-mph difference. He throws a fastball 83, throws a fastball 88, curveball at 74, curveball at 79. He just stayed on the edges.”

  Bruce Chen, ladies and gentlemen. Bruce freakin’ Chen.

  • J-Up’s back up: Here’s what Justin Upton hit 75 games from April 28 through July 29: .233 (66-for-283) with four homers, 29 RBIs, 40 walks, 82 strikeouts, .333 OBP, .329 slugging percentage (yes, .329 slugging).

   Here’s what he’s hit in his past nine games: .487 (19-for-39) with five homers, 13 RBIs, .545 OBP, .974 slugging.

   He is 22-for-50 (.440) in a 12-game hitting streak he takes into Friday’s series opener against the Marlins.

   Meanwhile, brother B.J. Upton has 10 hits in five games since returning from the DL. The center fielder is 10-for-21 with two doubles, two walks, seven strikeouts and three stolen bases in that five-game hitting streak.

  • Heyward’s rolling: Jason Heyward, who turned 24 on Friday, has enjoyed quite a midseason turnaround. He's been instrumental in the Braves' winning streak, particularly since moving to the leadoff spot.

  That turnaround went like this: After missing 3-1/2 weeks recovering from an appendectomy, Heyward returned to the lineup May 17 and went 8-for-48 (.167) with two doubles, no homers, three RBIs and a .310 OBP and .208 slugging percentage in his next 14 games, including 0-for-3 with three strikeouts on June 1.

   Heyward was on the bench the next game, June 2. He returned to the lineup and had two hits June 3, and here’s what he has done beginning that day: 53 games, .287 (58-for-202) with 11 doubles, one triple, eight homers, 24 RBIs, 35 runs, 25 walks, 36 strikeouts, .371 OBP, .470 slugging.

  The Braves are 34-19 in those 53 games.

 • Tonight’s matchup: It’s Brandon Beachy against Marlins righty Jacob Turner (3-3, 2.68 ERA).

 It’s be the third start for Beachy since returning from Tommy John surgery. He gave up a career-high seven runs and eight hits in 3-2/3 innings vs. Colorado in his first game back, then made significant progress Saturday at Philadelphia, giving up five hits and four runs (three earned) in 6-1/3 innings with two walks and four strikeouts.

   Against the Marlins, Beachy is 2-0 with a 2.94 ERA and .215 opponents’ average in five starts, with 11 walks and 40 strikeouts in 33-2/3 innings. Four of those starts came in 2011 and the other in May 2012.

   Turner is 1-2 with a 3.26 ERA in his past five starts, getting zero run support in the two losses. He allowed two runs apiece in four of his past five starts, including a July 10 win against the Braves when he gave up four hits and three walks in seven innings. He’s pitched 6-1/3 or fewer innings in each start since.

   With runners on base, Turner has allowed a stingy .190 average (22-for-116) and no homers this season. In scoring position, that drops to .160 (10-for-60).  Against the Braves, he’s 1-1 with a 2.77 ERA in two career starts.

 • Click here a great live version of a sublime rock tune from the Plimsouls.

“A MILLION MILES AWAY” by The Plimsouls
Friday night I'd just got back
I had my eyes shut
Was dreaming about the past
I thought about you while the radio played
I should have got moving
For some reason I stayed

I started drifting to a different place
I realized I was falling off the face of your world
And there was nothing left to bring me back

I'm a million miles away
A million miles away
A million miles away
And there's nothing left to bring me back today

I took a ride, I went downtown
Streets were empty
There was no one around
All the faces that we used to know
Gone from the places that we used to go

I'm at the wrong end of the looking glass
Trying to hold on to the hands of the past and you
And there's nothing left to bring me back

I'm a million miles away
A million miles away
A million miles away
And there's nothing left to bring me back today