Mets, Braves Among Baseball’s Best Right Now
By Steve Benko
The New York Mets, and the Atlanta Braves are among baseball’s best teams to start the year, which nobody expected. the Mets are the hottest team in baseball right now. Granted, it’s still early, an eight game win streak early in the season is a huge confidence builder. So, why have the Mets been so hot?
Well, it helps that during the eight game win streak, seven of them have been against the Miami Marlins, and the Philadelphia Phillies. The Marlins are off to a rough start to the season, their rotation is second to last in the MLB in team ERA with 4.89, and the Phillies, well, it’s essentially been the same story the last few seasons.
That’s not to say that the Mets have over-performed because they’ve played bad teams. The rotation of Bartolo Colon, Matt Harvey, and Jacob deGrom, has been dominant, Dillon Gee and Jon Niese, not so much. It doesn’t help that David Wright went on the 15-day DL, with a hamstring strain; other players needed to step up, and they have.
Lucas Duda was one of the players that stepped up for the Mets, uncharacteristically. Duda is a guy they’ve always had confidence in, but that confidence grew when they let go of Ike Davis in favor of Duda, last season. Although the quality of teams they have played on this win streak definitely has to be noted, they haven’t lost to any teams they shouldn’t lose to.
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The first series of the year which was against the Washington Nationals, they took two of three games. The second series, against the Atlanta Braves, they lost two of three games, since then they haven’t lost. The Mets for the first time in a few years, look solid from top to bottom. Can they sustain the success they’ve seen so far this year? It’s too early to tell, but they look very good.
The Braves on the other hand, weren’t supposed to be good coming into the season. So far, they’re playing well. What’s the key to the quick success? Like the Mets, two series’ against the Marlins has helped boost stats, the Braves are 4-2 against them this year. The two losses came when Eric Stults and Trevor Cahill pitched, which isn’t an excuse because they only scored four total runs in those games, but Stults and Cahill looked awful.
Right now, the Mets have a 1.5 game lead on the Braves in the NL East standings, but these are two teams that are running parallel in terms of production right now. It’s ironic because the Nationals dropped two out of three to the Mets and Phillies to start the season. Baseball has been weird so far this year, but eventually the Mets and Braves will cool off, however, the Mets have a better chance of being close to winning, or winning the NL East.
The Nationals will eventually pick it up, but until then, the Mets will continue to sit atop the NL East standings, with the Braves right behind them.