Following Monday’s loss to the Phillies, the Braves are now 19-23 on the season, and it’s become almost impossible not to draw the parallels between this season and last year. Every time the Braves seem like they might be turning the corner, they take a couple of steps back. They’re struggling to get over .500 and have yet to win three games in a row this season. As a fan, it’s been brutal to watch, but if last year taught us anything, it’s that there is still plenty of time for the Braves to turn this thing around.
With that being said, Atlanta now faces a hole that they never had to face at any point in 2021. The Mets clobbered the Giants in San Francisco last night, putting them nine games up on the Braves in the NL East. The most games Atlanta was down in the division at any point last season was eight, which came in the middle of June.
#Braves are 8 1/2 games behind first-place Mets, pending outcome of the Mets' late game at San Francisco, where NY leads 5-2 in 6th. It'll be a 9-game deficit for the Braves if the Mets win. The farthest back that Atlanta fell in 2021 was 8 games, and only for one day (June 16)
— David O'Brien (@DOBrienATL) May 24, 2022
The only glass half full way to look at this is that it’s still May, so the Braves have plenty of time to make up the ground, but things will have to change considerably for them to do so. Nothing Atlanta has shown us so far suggests they are capable of catching the Mets. However, baseball is a game of streaks, and the Braves still have 14 games remaining against New York this season. If the Atlanta bats can start to get hot at the right time, anything can still happen.
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Photo: Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire
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