Baseball fans generally disagree about when it’s OK to start thinking about the standings and playoff races.
Generally, most would agree that June wouldn’t be “do or die” time in that regard. For this Atlanta Braves team, however, these 11 games could be just that.
Yesterday, the Braves kicked off four games on the road against the National League East-leading New York Mets, with the Mets 5 games ahead of Atlanta in the standings. The Phillies are just ahead of the Braves and 4 games back, but I choose to ignore the Phillies whenever possible.
Then the Braves play a four-game series in Cincinnati against the volatile Reds, while the Mets will play four games against the Phillies and a single game against the Nationals before heading to Atlanta for a three-game series to flip the calendar to July.