Braves Tread Water in Division Race

For the past couple of months, every road trip and home stand the Braves have entered has been touted by the local media (and, on occasion, by this blogger) as "the biggest one of the year." Yet, after all the build-up, Atlanta has played below .500 and still is at the same 6 game deficit that they faced after being swept by Philly in early June.

This stagnancy has not only made it incredibly hard to find sufficient blogging material, but more importantly, it has made it incredibly hard for anyone--possibly including the the front office--to guess what the Braves might do regarding the upcoming trading deadline. Last week I outlined what the Braves could do, but there's still no telling what they should do. Atlanta is seemingly right on the "push line" for whether they should be buyers or sellers.

I think that there's something to be said that the Braves are still on the fringe of the race. There have been multiple stretches where it seemed like this team was about to fold, only to re-stoke the embers of hope. Jorge Campillo was the latest catalyst in staying in the race, throwing 7 nearly perfect innings in Miami last night for his 5th win.

Considering injury problems and the inability to beat the best team (as well as the worst team) in the division, the Braves are sticking around when many teams would have thrown in the towel for less.

What's obvious to anyone that's followed the team is that its leaders, to their credit, still have the pride to think that they're still in the race. While the media and most baseball fans only see a three-way race in the National League East, The Atlanta Braves see it differently. There's no time like the present to make do on that vision, but then again, we've been saying that for two months.