The Braves' Second Quarter: Hanging Around

It looks as though I have some catching up to do here, so I'll quickly touch on how things are going for the Bravos. While I had predicted this would be a third-place ball club at the beginning of the year, the teams they're chasing are completely different from what I had originally anticipated. And seeing as we're at the halfway point now, the usual looming trade deadline moves are being considered by multiple teams around the league. The Braves are certainly in contention for one of those playoff spots, so where might Atlanta be looking to improve?

With Brandon Beachy now being shut down for the year to undergo Tommy John surgery, that more or less nullifies the currently division-leading Nationals (!) having to ultimately sit down Steven Strasburg. With Miami dealing for Carlos Lee, that fourth place team's dealing shows that there's still some fighting expected in the East.

The second quarter for the Braves was a pretty tough one, as the team fell behind Washington and New York. Atlanta remains within shouting distance, but has really been struggling to get back atop the division. While Dan Uggla will be starting at second base for the National League in the All-Star Game (and has been widely considered to be undeserving of the selection), Brian McCann is missing out for the first time since he came into the league and both Chipper Jones and Michael Bourn (both of whom seemed to be worthier than Uggla) lost out on the fan vote for the extra spot (eventually given to the Cardinals' David Freese).

The team retired John Smoltz's jersey number in what will probably be the second-to-last ceremony of this type for a couple years (I'm thinking Chipper will get honored at some point next season), but the question that remains is whether fans are going to be getting something that has unfortunately become a lot less frequent than it used to be: postseason baseball.