Braves star isn’t sweating letdown loss to Marlins, failure to clinch

Austin Riley and the Atlanta Braves are not sweating a bad loss Monday to the Miami Marlins.

After sweeping the New York Mets at home over the weekend, the Atlanta Braves laid an egg on the road Monday night vs. the reeling Miami Marlins, blowing a golden opportunity to clinch the NL East division outright.

While an emotional letdown was largely expected after sweeping the Mets the night before, Atlanta could have finished the drill in Miami, but got shut out instead. The Braves’ magic number to win the NL East for the fifth year in a row remains at one. They need either one more win or one more Mets loss to clinch the No. 2 seed in the National League. The Mets game was rained out…

Braves All-Star third baseman Austin Riley did his best to talk Braves Country off the ledge after squandering a golden opportunity in Miami on Monday night.

While everybody knows that the Braves are more talented than the Marlins, Atlanta skipper Brian Snitker going with Jake Odorizzi on Tuesday night does not exactly have the fanbase brimming with confidence to get this thing done.

Even though the Braves control their own destiny, it would be such a shame if they blew this…

Austin Riley believes the Atlanta Braves will bounce back vs. Miami Marlins

There were many factors in the Braves coming up short in Miami on Monday night. Although the flight from Atlanta to Miami is not that far, the Braves did play on Sunday Night Baseball the night before. This means they did not get into South Florida until the early hours of Monday morning. Regardless of how hard the team partied on Sunday night, this was every bit a scheduling loss…

While the Mets got to rest a bit with Monday’s home game vs. the Washington Nationals rained out, keep in mind how difficult it is to complete the sweep in a double-header. Washington is just as bad as Miami is, but this is baseball, a sport where the best teams will lose 20 percent of the time and the worst clubs will win at least 20 percent of their games. The middle 60 is everything.

Simply put, for the Mets to stay alive heading into the final day of the regular season, New York has to complete the double-header sweep of the Nationals, and the Braves have to lose to the Marlins again. While that could definitely happen, the Mets would need to sweep the Nationals completely on Wednesday and the Braves would need to be swept by the awful Marlins as well.

Ultimately, there is one other big factor in this for both rival teams. Neither club is using its better starting pitchers down the stretch. Atlanta and New York went all out over the weekend with Jacob deGrom vs. Max Fried on Friday, Max Scherzer vs. Kyle Wright on Saturday and Chris Bassitt vs. Charlie Morton on Sunday. It doesn’t serve either club to pitch these guys until the postseason.

No matter how the NL East race shakes out, Atlanta and New York will be favored in their next series. Whether it is the NLWCS or the NLDS remains to be seen. Neither club wants to enter its first postseason series with a starting rotation disadvantage. The runner-up will likely host the San Diego Padres, while the winner may face either the St. Louis Cardinals or Philadelphia Phillies.

The Braves’ magic number is still one, but it would be way easier if they just win on Tuesday night.