NL East

The New York Mets have officially released outfielder Chris Young.

The team announced the move on Twitter:

This comes after New York designated the 30-year-old for assignment earlier in the week, per ESPNNewYork.com's Adam Rubin.

It's no secret the Atlanta Braves have played their worst baseball of the season the past few weeks.

The Atlanta Braves are 3-9 in August and have lost 17 of 26 games since the All-Star break.

The recent skid has put the Braves six games behind the Washington Nationals in the National League East and three games back for a wild-card spot.

With the New York Mets not doing particularly well this season, many fans are probably looking forward to the 2015 season by now. The Mets have a lot of young pitching in particular, which makes the future for the team look very bright.

Giancarlo Stanton has spent all of the 2014 Major League Baseball season showing us how great he is. He spent all of Monday's game showing us how great he can still be.

Things were looking up for Stephen Strasburg headed into his start on Friday night against the Atlanta Braves. At least that’s how it seemed.

With a two-run blast in the ninth inning of Thursday's 7-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates, Miami Marlins outfielder Giancarlo Stanton moved into sole possession of third place on his franchise's all-time home runs list, per Lee Sinins of Complete Baseball Encyclopedia.

The Atlanta Braves acquired Emilio Bonifacio and James Russell from the Chicago Cubs at the July 31 trade deadline to bolster the roster for the stretch run.

In Bonifacio, the Braves strengthened their bench with one of the top utility players in the game. He can play all the outfield positions and infield positions (minus catcher and first base) while adding an element of speed to the Braves.

During his 16 years in the major leagues, Mike Piazza compiled a career batting average of .308 with 427 homes runs.

Piazza, who was the 1,390th overall draft pick for the Los Angeles Dodgers back in 1988, batted .300 or better for nine consecutive years between 1993 and 2001. He also had nine seasons with 30 or more home runs, and his 1997 season, where he batted .362 with 40 home runs and 124 RBI, was arguably the greatest single offensive season by any catcher in history.