The Braves' First Quarter: Encouraging signs?

I guess if something's going to dull the still healing wound that is both the Blackhawks and Bulls being eliminated much earlier than I'd anticipated, it might as well be good news about the Braves. Last year's disappointing finish began a pretty painful series of finishes to the respective campaigns from the Four Bs. So perhaps we're all due for a new cycle.

I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but it is important to remember that there are now two wild cards for the postseason, so sitting in first place after the first 41 games is certainly a good place to be. Still, my preseason picks to get into the playoffs from this division are currently in the bottom two spots instead, but I highly doubt that will stand for all that much longer. Nonetheless, the Braves rebounded quite nicely from starting the year 0-4 by winning something like 10 of their next 11.

It is largely a surprise to me that the it's the team's offense that has been propelling the success more than the pitching. The picture for this quarter's graphic comes from a wild win that happened the night of my birthday, no less. It was a wild back-and-forth with the Phillies that ended with Chipper hitting an 11th inning walk-off homer. If Atlanta continues to produce runs at this rate and the pitching indeed becomes more solid, then who's really to say what the limit is?

If the Braves can stay healthy, it certainly appears they can stay in the playoff conversation too.

The thing to note here is that the National League East is currently the only division in baseball with five teams having winning records. Will that hold up? I've got my doubts about the Mets, but four's a real possibility. And three postseason teams from this division is too, but it's not impossible another hot team in either the Central or the West grabs one of those other wild cards.

Another item that multiple outlets have already touched on is the attention that is being paid to last year's three-headed monster of O'Flaherty-Venters-Kimbrel and avoiding overuse this year. Of course, right now it's been a pretty one-headed monster, and Fredi has not set any of them on pace for 80-something appearance, by any means (yet). 

There's tremendous doubts about when Jair Jurrjens will in fact be returning from the minor leagues, but Tommy Hanson, Tim Hudson and especially Brandon Beachy have all had very strong moments. Mike Minor has gotten off to a rough start, but I'll hold out hope.

Offensively, Martin Prado is off to a truly encouraging start, seeing as he is rebounding from an injury that cut his season short last year. Michael Bourn is proving to be exactly what many of us were hoping for when he was acquired last year, leading the team in hits and providing the speed on the base paths the Braves were sorely lacking. Overall, Atlanta is among the top five teams in the league in terms of runs scored and batting average.

The Braves are pretty much the only act in town to follow until football kicks off, so a season where they are contenders is always more fun that struggling to reach or stay above .500 for 162 games. Sure, there's still a long way to go, but after the team dropped four straight to open the year, it didn't take long for the "Fire Fredi?" reports to being surfacing.

You're not seeing that suggestion so much now.