Braves continue to roll as they head to Chicago and New York this week

The Braves have a 9½-game lead in the NL East and the best record in baseball. What else is new?

Manager Walt Weiss’ team went 5-1 on last week’s homestand and is fresh off a sweep of the Pirates as it enjoys an off day in Chicago on Monday ahead of a three-game series with the White Sox that starts Tuesday.

Then it’s off to New York to begin a three-game series Friday with the Mets, a squad many thought would challenge for the NL East title but instead is last in the division and 15½ games behind at the start of this week.

Atlanta, somewhat inexplicably, continues to win with catchers Drake Baldwin and Sean Murphy on the injured list, shortstop Ha-Seong Kim hitting .096 (that’s not a misprint) and catchers Sandy León, Chadwick Tromp and Austin Wynns a combined 8-for-65.

Center fielder Michael Harris II also missed Saturday’s game, because of back pain. But in keeping with the it-doesn’t-matter theme of this team, Harris came off the bench Sunday and provided the game-winning hit in a 3-2 win against the Pirates.

“We fight all the way to the end,” Harris said. “To the last out we’re gonna give it our best and try to put up runs and prevent them from scoring runs. I think that’s the best thing — and we have fun while doing it.”

Sunday’s win was Atlanta’s 22nd comeback victory of the season, one of the many eye-opening stats for the club through 66 games. It’s 45-21 record (three games better than the Dodgers for baseball’s best mark) is tied with the 2003 and 1998 teams for the best 66-game start in modern franchise history.

The Braves have an MLB-best 337 RBIs and are among the top three in OPS, slugging, batting average, home runs and runs scored. The pitching staff has MLB’s second-best ERA and batting average against, and third-best WHIP.

They have won 22 games at home, 23 on the road, claimed 17 of 21 series, are 38-0 when leading after eight innings and 35-2 when scoring at least five runs.

And Atlanta continues to win at a high clip with third baseman Austin Riley hitting .208, outfielder Mike Yastrzemski hitting .235 and Ronald Acuña Jr. (although hot of late) having driven in only 22 runs.

There are a little less than four months of baseball to be played, and a little less than 100 games yet to be contested, so no one is putting Champagne on ice at this juncture. But for a team that has the third-best betting odds to win the World Series, according to multiple sportsbooks, and a 90.8% probability of winning the division, according to FanGraphs, there isn’t much to be concerned about in the second week of June for the Atlanta Braves.

“It’s a very close group. It’s a group that likes to compete — I say that a lot. They enjoy it. And they hold each other accountable, to a high standard,” Weiss said Sunday. “The first day of spring training, everybody talks about accountability, but the greatest form of accountability is when the group doesn’t want to let each other down. It doesn’t get any better than that. That’s where we’re at.