Atlanta Braves: Big Week Ahead to Pick up Ground in Standings

The Atlanta Braves have had to face some difficult pitching to start the season, but things could ease up a little this week.

There is no question the Atlanta Braves have possibly faced some of the toughest pitching in all of baseball through the first 10 games going up against Jacob deGrom twice and playing four games against a Tampa Bay Rays team that has stud-after-stud coming out of the bullpen.

But after facing deGrom and the Mets on Monday, it looks like they might get a break.

That’s not to say they aren’t playing good teams this week in the Toronto Blue Jays and Philadelphia Phillies, but they don’t possess the pitching the Mets and Rays have.

And more than that, both of those teams have been in limbo since the season began putting their pitchers in a real bind.

To this point, the Blue Jays have played just seven games — all of the on the road as they’re currently without a home ballpark.

And the Phillies have played just three games after the Miami Marlins came and infected their stadium on the opening weekend.

Philadelphia is scheduled to play four games against the Yankees this week, and that won’t be much fun for their pitching staff.

I’m not sure what their pitchers have done to try and stay loose while they’ve been off for nearly a week, but you have to figure they still won’t be stretched out by the time the Braves go to face them this weekend.

And the early results for the Phillies pitching staff wasn’t encouraging as they gave up 17 runs to the Marlins in a three-game series loss.

The Blue Jays surprisingly have the seventh-best team ERA in baseball at 3.40.

What works in the Braves favor there though is that the Blue Jays don’t strikeout a ton of batter with a K/9 of 8.57(19th of 30) and they walk a ton of batters — especially the bullpen — with a BB/9 of 4.29.

Just about anything is easier than facing that Rays’ pitching staff and deGrom in six of the first 10 games. Hopefully the Braves offense, which held it’s own against those arms, can have an even bigger week against the Blue Jays and Phillies’ pitching staffs.