One of the most interesting division in baseball is the National League East. They have arguably the two best teams in the National League with the Atlanta Braves and Washington Nationals. The three other teams all have big question marks at a lot of different positions. Before we get too far into this we should look at the standings.
Standings Through First 1/4 Of Season | Team | Record |
| Atlanta Braves | 18-13 |
| Washington Nationals | 17-15 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 14-18 |
| New York Mets | 12-16 |
| Miami Marlins | 10-22 |
To this point in the season the Atlanta Braves have looked like the best team in the East. The pitching has shown flashes of greatness; along with power bats, with the potential to put up scary-big home run numbers. The other side of the story is the strikeout totals the Braves are putting up. They have the most in the entire National League, with 272. For now this is working, the only question is whether or not they can pull it off for an entire year.
The team that was expected to be above the Braves in the standings is the Washington Nationals. They started the year slow and suffered a home-series sweep at the hands of the Atlanta Braves. They have been playing better of late and Bryce Harper is one of the main reasons why. He is currently tied for third in home runs with nine on the season. Justin Upton is the current home run leader at 12. As far as pitching goes, the Nationals have a few things to be a bit sceptical about. Stephen Strasburg hasn’t had control of his fastball for basically the entire year and Gio Gonzalez has also looked questionable.
As for the rest of the division, most things haven’t changed. The Miami Marlins continue to play like one of the worst teams in baseball and the New York Mets are living and dying by their bullpen. The Phillies optimistic attitude going into the season with Roy Halladay is all but gone now. His ERA has inflated to a whopping 8.65. He is going to be visiting a doctor in the next couple days to figure out what is wrong. Hopefully this isn’t a season ending surgery.
The one bright spot of the bottom three teams in this division has to be how pitcher Matt Harvey for the Mets has been playing. He is 4-0 with a 1.56 ERA and 46 strikeouts. His strikeout total is tied for fifth in the NL and his ERA is third. It is very early in the season, but if Harvey can continue to pitch like he is, he might just get some Cy Young Award discussion.
For the most part things have went basically how everyone assumed things would be to this point in the season. We will see what happens over the next few months, but things already look exciting. Before you know it we will be at the All Star break and the stretch run will be right around the corner.