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The National League East is baseball's tightest division heading into the All-Star Break, leaving many spectators guessing as to whom their playoff representative will be.
The New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, Florida Marlins, and Atlanta Braves are all within eight games or closer of the Washington Nationals, which gives some people the impression that this division is up for grabs.
Those are the same people who haven't learned by now.
The Atlanta Braves have won the National League East 10 consecutive times and will do it again this year.
The competition may seem stiff, but in reality, it is down to two, maybe three teams.
The New York Mets and the Philadelphia Phillies are treading water at .500. The Mets have the league's second-worst batting average and the league's third-worst on-base percentage. Meanwhile, the Phillies have the worst ERA in their division, have the fewest innings per start average in their division, and have given up at least 39 more home runs than anyone else in their division.
More importantly for these two teams, there are no inclinations that these dilemmas will improve in the second half of the season.
That leaves the Marlins and Nationals as the Braves biggest challengers.
The problem for the Marlins is that they are barely above .500, but how much better can things get? They have the starting pitching and the hitting leaving their bullpen as the source of their difficulties. Their record in one-run games is 10-16.
The batting lineup has been fantastic in every aspect — aside from Mike Lowell. If I described a team that had only two players in the starting lineup hitting with a batting averages under .280 and the top four pitchers of the rotation with ERA's below 3.35, would you think they would be 44-42? Well, that's the Marlins for you. The room for improvement is in the bullpen, but there is no in-house solution for this quandary.
The Nationals have been simultaneously the most impressive and surprising team in this division, but there is no question that they have overachieved so far. Their pitching has carried them — particularly in the month of July, where the team is batting .233. All-stars Chad Cordero and Livan Hernandez have led the way, but it is hard to envision this team winning the division with its current roster. Aside from Jose Guillen's 17 home runs, no player is even in double-digits in that category and if the pitching goes sour for a month, there is no way this team will survive.
As for the Braves, there season couldn't be much worse to this point, yet they are still somehow only 2.5 games out of first place.
Starting with injuries, this team has been ravaged with cuts and sores throughout the season. The pitching staff has been bruised with the losses of Tim Hudson (85.2 IP), Mike Hampton (59 IP), and John Thomson (50 IP), while the batting lineup has only had the services of Chipper Jones in just over half of the games.
The Raul Mondesi and Brian Jordan experiment drastically failed as neither has been of any value at the corner-outfield positions. Danny Kolb was supposed to step into the closer's role, but that was also unsuccessful.
Furthermore, leadoff hitter Rafael Furcal, who is a perennial spark for the Braves' batting lineup, is far off from his career batting and on-base averages. Normally, he sits around .280 for batting and .340 for on-base percentage, but is currently at .245 and .310.
If somebody would have suggested to you that the Braves would have all of this on their plate at the All-Star
Break and would still be within arm's reach of first place you probably would have laughed.
Sure, Jim Thome has disappeared in the Phillies batting lineup, Carlos Beltran may be vastly underachieving from what he was projected to be and Guillermo Mota has been a bust Florida's bullpen but none of these teams have had to deal with as many curveballs as the Braves have been faced with.
Yet Bobby Cox still has this team primed for contention.
Once Wilson Betemit, Kyle Davies, Jorge Sosa, and Roman Colon are replaced by Chipper Jones, Tim Hudson, Mike Hampton, and John Thomson, the Braves will probably cruise to yet another NL East Division.
The Nationals, Marlins, Phillies, Mets, and first-place in the National League East mix like Mondays and me.
"The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender." — Vince Lombardi
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