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Perhaps I was right about the Braves after all...

A couple of months ago, I wrote a piece about the Atlanta Braves and how I wasn't buying into the hype surrounding the team just yet, which was largely due to the off-season acquisitions of B.J. and Justin Upton. While I praised the team's pitching, I made note that the team's make-up offensively concerned me. The team lost their three most consistent hitters from a year ago in Chipper Jones, Martin Prado, and Michael Bourne, and replaced them with three talented, but inconsistent and strikeout-prone players in B.J. Upton, Justin Upton, and Chris Johnson. While Johnson and Justin Upton have played well to this point in the season, B.J. Upton has struggled quite considerably. Dan Uggla, Andrelton Simmons, and Jason Heyward are all off to slow starts as well. Brian McCann and Freddie Freeman are out with injuries, and Heyward has just been added to that list. However, even with all these problems on offense, the team started off with a Major League best 12-1 record. I then wrote a piece stating that perhaps I was wrong about this team, that they deserved the hype after all, and maybe I had underestimated the pitching staff. Well, after going 1-4 in their last five games and only scoring a combined 9 runs in that span, the team has dropped to 13-5 and is beginning to resemble the team I wrote about a couple months back. Hopefully the bats can start to get going here to provide the pitchers some much needed (and deserved) relief at times. I don't care how good the pitching is if half of the starting lineup (minus the pitcher) are hitting .211, .167, .161, and .121.
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