ATLANTA–The Braves' final home stand of the season starts Friday night.
With each victory (and/or Phillies loss), the club inches closer to capturing their first National League East title in five years.
Can Atlanta (current magic number: 15) clinch the division crown before the home schedule wraps on Sept. 23, with the final series at SunTrust Park involving the second-place Phillies?
That's a major question to ponder, of course, but first things first:
Will the Braves (80-64, five-game lead in the NL East) even get a chance to complete their Friday-Sunday set with the Nationals, due to the impending arrival of Hurricane Florence, which is slated to devastate South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia sooner than later?
WEEKEND WEATHER FORECAST
Right now, Weather.com projects Atlanta for sunny skies on Friday and Saturday; but for someone who's been living here 13-plus years, I have vivid recollections of tropical storms/hurricanes in Florida or South Carolina indirectly affecting Georgia, in terms bringing torrential rains for days on end.
In this case, I would love to be wrong; but for now, let's address three logistical concerns for Hurricane Florence, related to the Braves:
WHAT ABOUT MOVING THINGS UP FOR THURSDAY?
By most accounts, Hurricane Florence could hit landfall sometime Thursday. In this event, it might not immediately affect the conditions in Atlanta.
That's the good news.
The bad news: The Braves will have a travel day then, the result of flying home from a West Coast swing through Arizona and San Francisco.
Technically, Atlanta could suit up and play Thursday, if it were a two-way open date.
But it won't be, at least on paper.
The Nationals will entertain the Cubs in a one-day make-up event Thursday; and given the tenuous weather that's about to slam the East Coast, would anyone be surprised if Chicago-Washington experiences an all-day rain delay in our nation's capital?
WILL THE STARTING ROTATION FIND ITS RHYTHM?
If the Braves/Atlanta somehow escape the high winds and biblical-style rains of Hurricane Florence, that's great.
Nothing to fear then.
However, if the club gets caught in a web of rain-shortened games and cancellations altogether, it might adversely affect Atlanta's supposedly golden pursuit of the NL East title.
Atlanta's currently operating with a six-man rotation of Kevin Gausman, Julio Teheran, rookie Touki Toussaint, rookie Sean Newcomb, Mike Foltynewicz and Anibal Sanchez; but we all know things would be dramatically tighter in a playoff matchup–either five games (National League Division Series) or seven games (NLCS and World Series).
In that perspective, what if a number of raid-addled cancellations wreak havoc with the rotational setup, in terms of simultaneously trying to clinch the division and aligning things for the NLDS round?
(Fangraphs.com has the Braves' odds of winning the NL East at 87.4 percent ... or reaching the postseason as a wild card at 88.2 percent.)
The only three locks to start a playoff series? From our perspective, it's Gausman (4-2, 2.32 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 30/11 K-BB since joining the Braves), Foltynewicz (10-9, 2.75 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, 179/60 K-BB) and Teheran (9-7, 3.95 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 8.2 K/9 rate).
Hopefully, the trio gets enough rest and reps during this period of weather-related craziness.
WHAT CAN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL DO?
Do you recall the brutally cold weather in the Midwest and northeast markets, when the season began in late March?
Take my hometown Detroit Tigers. They didn't play a single outing with a game-time temperature above 40 degrees until late April, the unfortunate result of a front-loaded schedule which included neither sun-splashed cities nor domed stadiums, like Milwaukee's Miller Park.
With this fresh memory, Major League Baseball simply cannot start any earlier than late March, from year to year.
On the flip side, for the playoffs to be concluded around Halloween weekend, the regular season must end in the final weekend of September/first few days of October.
As such, the Braves will have just one scheduled off day from Sept. 14-30 ... with a travel day to New York on Sept. 24.
The difficulty here? Atlanta cannot reschedule multiple opponents for make-up games on a single off day. It's simply not possible.
