Da Braves are coming around

The Braves are the same. They're hitters are mostly hot, and their pitching is weak. Hudson is good. Smoltz is gone. They never had depth past that in the first place. Your pitching will continue to suck, and therefore you will continue to lose 2 games every rotation because Hudson and MAYBE Glavine are the only two legit pitchers on your team.

Then look at the Mets. Taking out Ryan Church, name one hot player? The pitching has been good, but not great. The bullpen has been garbage. Every single player on that team except Wagner, Santana, Maine, and Church has nowhere to go but up. And lets be honest... this is what we expected out of Santana and Maine. They're not hot, they're where they should be. Our #f hitter is batting like .205 with 2 HR!!!!! No other team boasts that mediocrity in the 4 hole. Even Howard has like 6 HR.

The point being, on the Phils and Braves, you have VERY hot players for every one having a terrible season. Not so with the Mets. Which is why you have to be more concerned about them than the Phillies.

And for the record... the Reds are a MUCH better team than the Giants right now. Cueto-Volzquez-Arroyo-Harang is a pretty nice rotation (minus Arroyo right now). The Giants couldn't hit a ball off the tee... 3 one run games against what will end up being the worst offense in baseball (calling it now!)? Thats heinous.

Some good stuff in the thread.

The division seems to be middling again.  No one has exactly distinguished themselves; Florida was in the van for a month but has cooled a bit; Philly is currently leading but is missing some key pieces; Atlanta has the above-documented pitching problems; The Mets offense doesn't appear to be all-powerful as we have been led to believe (plus pitching inconsistent); the Nationals have some good young players but have sunk to the cellar like every other year.

Unless one of these teams can string together an eight- or nine-game win streak, they're probably all going to be bunched up until the fall.  So it'll be anybody's division in September.

Philsfan77 -

It seems as if all you're saying is "so-and-so might not be as good as last year". Why> Why do you need to point to someone underperforming compared to last year? Because the Reds have the better overall team. Can you prove that Matt Cain will be as good as last year? See, that arguement is nothing. Good players are good, last year and this year. Heck, the Giants are also counting on Rowand putting up band-box numbers in AT&T park.  And, before I say something unclear- allow me to put a disclaimer on this: I love the Giants pitching. In a few years it could lead them to a NL West title. Matt Cain is very good. Tim Lincicum could be an ace in a couple years. But this year? Cain is still really good(so is Harang). Lincicum is not going to be that ace this year. Good, but needes more time. Lowrhy? I know he's out as of now, but he's a 4. I believe Jonathon Sanchez has stepped into the 5 slot in their rotation(I could be wrong). That's not great pitching. Tell me what's so different about the 2 rotations? Each have a legit ace, each have a young pitcher(or 2) with great stuff. And each has crap after that(with the possible exception of Lowrhy).  So, the Giants rotation, while better, is not good enough to say "bad offense with great rotation". You might say "bad offense with good rotation". Bad offense + good to average rotation= Lots of losses. Good offense + decent rotation= well, at least more wins than the other.