Two months ago, this would have arrived as a take-a-picture/screenshot-of-the-standings occasion. The Atlanta Braves awoke on Memorial Day in first place, and it wasn’t a fluky first. They’d held the top spot in the National League East for 26 of the past 27 days. But Memorial Day wasn’t two months ago. Memorial Day was now, and now felt less giddy than, for a team that hadn’t known a winning season since 2013, it should have.
The Braves convened at SunTrust Park for a day/night doubleheader coming off their worst week. They lost as many series over seven days in Philadelphia and Boston as they had in the season's first 53 days. (If not for a stunning ninth inning against the last-place Marlins, they'd have dropped their last home series, too.) They were shut out twice in Philly. They wasted two early leads in Fenway. Even if you'd come to believe in this team – and I had – you wondered if that sound you heard was the thunderclap of reality.
Then Mike Foltynewicz outpitched Chris Sale to salvage something from a weekend in New England, and the Phillies lost to Toronto. Back in first place, coming home for the holiday and another significant week – four with the Mets, four more with the Nationals. It would have been a happy flight home except for the bit about Ronald Acuna twisting his knee, and when your most gifted player twists a knee the whole organization goes into spasm.
There’d been no official word of an Acuna diagnosis when the Braves reported for work Monday morning. If facial expressions were any measure, the mood didn’t seem dark. Early whispers, which may have been based on nothing more than hope, held that Acuna might have avoided tearing a ligament, which scarcely seemed possible in that ungainly moment north of first base.
Official word arrived in the bottom of the first inning of the afternoon game: Mild ACL sprain of the left knee – meaning no tear. Acuna was placed on the disabled list and will be evaluated at the end of the 10-day period. In other words: Whew.
Should Acuna miss two weeks, say, the Braves will deem themselves outrageously lucky. If we go by Pythagorean wins/losses, they should be 32-19, as opposed to 30-21. They no longer have the league’s best record, but their run differential is plus-61. Milwaukee, which is 34-20, has a differential of plus-33.
Freddie Freeman, franchise player, entered the clubhouse Monday morning bearing the fruits – well, not exactly the fruits – of a stop at Starbucks. He paused for a round of quick questions. The, er, fruits of that dialogue are as follows.
Is this a playoff team?
FF: “Yes.”
No question?
FF: “No question.”
(Pause.)
FF: “If you’d asked me the same thing three years ago, my answer would have been the same.”
And this time you might even mean it.
FF, smiling: “Yes.”
As much as it pains me to use the columnist’s classic hedge – “time will tell” – it invariably will. By our next national holiday, the Braves will have played more than half their schedule. If they’re still in first place on July 4, general manager will be duty-bound to start buying, assuming he hasn’t already. And there’s a good chance his team will hold first on the Fourth. Counting Monday’s doubleheader, 19 of the next 27 games will be staged in Cobb County. Of those 27, 18 will be against teams that were sub-.500 on Memorial Day. Of the Braves’ first 51 games, 35 were against teams now above .500.
They’ve held first place for nearly a month despite an early schedule that even the optimists among us thought might doom them to an 80-win season. Even after their worst week, they’re on pace to win 95. Ninety-five wins gets you in the playoffs. In three of the past four seasons, 95 wins has won or tied for the NL East title.
Are there issues? Sure. General manager Alex Anthopoulos probably can't go another month without bolstering his bullpen. According to Baseball Prospectus, the Braves have gotten less from their third basemen than all but three MLB clubs. As solid as this rotation has been, it's unclear if Julio Teheran and Brandon McCarthy, who are a collective 9-4, can continue to win at that rate with unassuming ERAs and peripheral stats.
That said: This team keeps showing us something. It trailed the Mets and nemesis Jacob deGrom 2-0 Monday. It tied the game in the eighth, the trigger being Ozzie Albies’ leadoff bunt single against Seth Lugo. It fell behind in the top of the ninth on Devin Mesoraco’s homer off Shane Carle. It won on Charlie Culberson’s first home run as a Brave, a two-run shot off Lugo. Not an unhappy way to spend the first part of a holiday.
The Phillies would swap the Braves’ everyday eight for theirs; they wouldn’t swap rotations. The Nats probably wouldn’t exchange anything. Neither of those clubs, however, was in first place as of 5 p.m. on Memorial Day. These Braves were. In and of itself, that’s an achievement. Bigger achievements could be forthcoming. This is a good team. It has a real chance.
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