Atlanta Braves

What did I tell you? A week ago the Mets looked awful as they dropped their fourth consecutive series to start the season to open the season.

Well, after winning two consecutive series and five of their last six games, things are looking good in Flushing.

Don’t kid yourselves, this team does have problems, but they weren’t as bad as they were a week ago.

I feel like the baseball season is halfway over already.

I know, the Braves are only 14 games into the year, but doesn’t it seem like so much has happened?

First there was Opening Day—Derek Lowe being Derek Lowe, a packed crowd at Turner Field, and of course, the monster homerun hit on the first swing of Jason Heyward’s career.

The Atlanta Braves offense has produced less than stellar numbers so far this season. At the moment the majority of their offensive stats are in the bottom third of the league. Not the greatest beginning for a team that suffered from lack of run production during the first half of the season last year.

The subject of offense has been the biggest worry for Braves fans.  Still, before calling for the heads of hitters, lets look at what they've had to face this season.

Just call him Nate McClutch.

The Braves center fielder, who was hitting a mere .138 with just one RBI all season, sure picked a good time to break out of his slump.

McLouth hit a leadoff 10th-inning solo blast against Jose Contreras to cap Atlanta’s stunning comeback 4-3 win over division rival Philadelphia.

The Braves have now won five of their last six games and find themselves in a first-place tie with the Phillies atop the National League East standings.

In a move that should surprise no one, Major League Baseball announced today that Ubaldo Jimenez is the player of the week for the National League.

No one wants to be that guy.

No one wants to be the person who claims that a team lost because of an umpire or an official. It comes across as a petty excuse for a team not getting the job done.

Chipper Jones is naturally right-handed. A switch-hitter, he learned to bat from the left side because he loved to emulate the Dodgers lineup as a child, and learned to take swings from the other side of the plate.

Jones has stated in the past that his left-handed swing takes a lot more work to keep steady than his right-handed swing. He has many more moving parts from the left side, and despite having better career numbers as a lefty, his swing is starting to slow and deteriorate.

For those of you who drafted Martin Prado, or at the very least picked him up off the waiver wire, you’ve got to be happy with his current hot streak—and 14 game hitting streak—despite the streak coming to an end Saturday night thanks largely in part to Ubaldo Jimenez’s no hitter.

But as with any hot player in fantasy baseball, the trendy question is always whether or not the player is the real deal, or just another popular flare up.

What a day it was in Major League Baseball yesterday. Not only did we see a 20-inning, six hour and 53 minute game (the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees usually go that long in a nine-inning game) between the New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals, but we also saw a no-hitter.

The Atlanta Braves are 10 games into the season, and they sit at 6-4 after winning their first game against the Rockies.

Here are some thoughts from the first week and a half of the year.

Martin Prado Keeps Hitting

Prado has been a hit machine thus far. At the beginning of the season, you could count me among those skeptical that Prado was as good as he showed us in 2009.