Braves: Time to Finish Final Road Trip of 2021 with a Bang
Despite losing their series to the San Francisco Giants the Atlanta Braves have a chance to pick up steam with the rest of their Westcoast schedule.
I’ve admittedly given up on this Atlanta Braves team about 50-plus times throughout the 2021 season — including twice in that Giants series. But yet there are two weeks left in the season and they hold a two-game lead in the NL East.
Even though they certainly could have won that Giants series and are competitive with them and the Dodgers, no one they face the rest of the way is anywhere close to that level.
That means this Braves team should have the ability to rack up some wins the rest of the way if they play like they’re capable.
What Braves Need to Accomplish this Week
It starts in Arizona on Monday night where they begin a four-game series against one of the worst teams in all of baseball.
The Snakes are 4-11 in the month of September going up against some pretty solid competition. They rank 24th in OPS since the All-Star break and 22nd in ERA over that same stretch.
There really is no excuse to not win at least three of these games.
And then the Braves essentially play a four-game series against the Padres concluding a game on Friday in which the Braves trail by a run late.
They have to at least split those four-game, especially with how the Padres are falling apart at the moment.
That means, at the very least, they have to go 5-3 this week, which would put them at 82-73.
And the reason why that’s the least they can do is that the Phillies will be facing the Orioles and Pirates. You have to assume they’ll win at least go 5-2.
If that happens and the Braves come back home with a 1.5 game lead over Phillies I think you can live with that. Especially since the Braves will be starting a three-game series against Philly at home.
At that point, you almost force Philly to have to sweep the Braves in Atlanta, which let’s not even speak that into existence.
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Of course, it would be nice if the Braves went on another hot streak and just won six or seven games this week. That would make me feel a lot better as they come home to finish off the 2021 season.