It’s normal for every team for some things to go wrong over the course of a baseball season. The hope is that the things that go wrong don’t take some grotesque form, like the equivalent of 70-pound locusts that destroy a seemingly well-thought-out and nicely landscaped garden, because that’s kind of what has happened to the Braves.
They played 60 games last season, won the National League East in the condensed season and came to within one game of going to the World Series.
They’ve played 60 games this season and they’re kind of a mess — maybe not Pirates-level mess but certainly relative mess for a team that has won three straight divisions and appeared to be ascending. For the second straight game, a bullpen meltdown wasted a strong performance from a starting pitcher and ended with a walk-off win by Philadelphia. The 4-3, 10-inning loss dropped the Braves’ record to 29-31.
