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When Major League Baseball announced that they were dropping their unbalanced schedule I wasn’t a fan. Now looking at things I can see why it made sense for MLB to do that.

Just imagine if your favorite team played in the American League East or maybe it does. By playing an unbalanced schedule you’d have to face very good teams more times than other teams would have to face average and below average teams. Of course, a schedule like that would hurt A.L. East team’s chances of making the playoffs.

At this point early in the season the A.L. East is showing why it’s probably the best division in MLB. Every team in the division is currently over .500. It’s the only division in baseball where every team is over the .500 mark, but the A.L. West is close as four of the five teams in that division are over .500.

Obviously, there’s still a long way to go in the baseball season, but with the way the A.L. East has played all three of the wild card slots would be filled by teams from that division. Is it possible that we could actually see that happen come October?

Now when we’re talking about teams in the A.L. East being over .500 it’s not like they’re just a game over .500 and it moves back and forth from game to game. The Boston Red Sox are currently in the cellar of the A.L. East right now and they’re four games over .500 at 22-18. If the Red Sox were in any other division, they’d be in 1st place in two of them and 2nd place in the other three.

You have to wonder if the new schedule will benefit these A.L. East teams as the season heads down the stretch. Instead of having extra games against teams in their division they’ll probably have some games against teams that they would be favorite to beat. It might also help an A.L. East team in the playoffs because they might have had to play as many high stress games coming down the stretch.

It’s just May, so there’s quite a few games left to be played and health is always so important for teams, but barring anything odd happening will we see four of the five A.L. East teams in the playoffs?

The Atlanta Braves are in 1st place in the National League East. They Braves have a 5 1/2 game lead over the 2nd place Philadelphia Phillies, but you have to wonder if they’ll be able to hold onto their division lead.

Atlanta came into this season down a starting pitcher as Mike Soroka started the season still recovering from the injury that’s kept him from pitching since 2020. Soroka has made six starts in Triple-A as he tries to work his way back. In April the Braves lost Ian Anderson to Tommy John surgery, so that put them down a second starter. Then just this week the Braves put Max Fried and Kyle Wright on the IL. Both Fried and Wright are expected to miss at least two months. If you’re counting that’s four starting pitchers that the Braves are missing.

So right now, the Braves have Spencer Strider, Bryce Elder and Charlie Morton in their rotation, but who will fill the other two spots. We’ve seen both Dylan Dodd and Jared Schuster make starts for the Braves this season, so they might be the two logical choices to fill those rotation spots.

Is it possible that the Braves could go another route and try to make a trade to fill one or both of the spots in their rotation? It’s still very early in the season for teams to make trades, but there are rebuilding teams out there that would probably be willing to part with a veteran starting pitcher if they have one. The question then becomes which teams and which pitchers could the Braves go after.

Now it’s possible that the Braves might just sit tight and see how their young starters do and they have a little bit of a lead in the division to work with. Atlanta did drop their third game in a row this afternoon, but it’s probably too early for them to panic.

What do you think the Braves will do. Will they stick with their young starting pitchers, or will they go out and look for a veteran starter or two? Let me know what you think the Braves will do.

Don’t forget to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.