Well after last night’s inspired come from behind win, the Atlanta Braves are officially eliminated from becoming the National League Eastern Division champion for a 12th straight year.  Yes I mean 12, don’t forget in ’91. ’92, and ’93, they were the Western Division Champions.  Never the less, a truly phenomenal run came to an end last night when Billy Wagner struck out Miguel Cabrera at 12:44AM to seal the Mets 89th win.

It has been obvious for a couple of months that it would have taken a baseball miracle for the Braves to win the division.  But now it truly has become a reality that the Braves will not win a division title this year.  From my heart, I don’t like Atlanta.  They simply have caused me too much pain and grief over the years.  Since their run began, the Braves dominated the Mets and won many games in the most painful ways possible.  So I can’t feel very sorry for them.  However, from my brain and as a baseball fan, you have to consider what the Braves organization has accomplished over the past decade and a half was truly remarkable.

The Braves won 14 consecutive division titles.  That is a span of, give or take, 2268 regular season games.  It is true that during that run, the Braves only made three World Series appearances winning once.  That will be the fact that critics point to when making the argument that the Braves of this period were not a dynasty.  I don’t buy it.  Most of the games played in baseball are regular season games, not post season games.  Once a team reaches the post season, anything can happen. It’s a crap shoot.  To win 14 consecutive division titles is unthinkable in this modern age of free agent baseball.  During the same time period, from 1991 through last season, the Mets finished over .500 six times making the post season twice as the wild card and winning the pennant once.  What Mets fan would not trade the Braves success for what the Mets did or did not accomplish over this stretch?

In no other sport has a team ever won their division for that many years in a row.  You can make the argument that there have been other teams with more success.  The Yankees have to be considered the most dominant franchise over the same time period because they won four world championships (three in a row from ’98 to ’00) and two of them were against the Braves.  And the Yankees are closing in on their eleventh straight division title.  What about the Marlins?  They came into existence after the Braves began their run.  Within this span, Florida has won two World Series. That’s twice the number the Braves have won but in other years, the Marlins were dreadful.  So yes, there are teams, you can argue, who have achieved perhaps more. But if an award were given out for consistency and building a team through a great farm system, excellent trades, and signing few but key free agents, the Braves would win it hands down. 

We can, as Mets fans, all hate the Braves but we have to at least admit that they are a great franchise having a bad year.  I would not make the mistake of assuming this is the last we have heard from Atlanta.  Even now they still have a chance to reach the post season as the wild card, but currently they are five games behind and have six teams to jump over.  This year is a long shot but you can bet that John Schuerholz is not going to sit around all winter and cry in his soup.  The Braves still have an excellent farm system with good young pitchers.  Mike Hampton should be back next year too.  The Braves have already improved their relief pitching this year, and that is a key for next season because so many of their games were lost early this year in the bullpen.  The point is with the Marlins developing young talent, the Phillies with Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and their young pitching, it is doubtful the Mets will run away and hide next year as they have  this season.  The Eastern Division of the National League is poised to be the toughest of all baseball in the coming years.  Omar Minaya knows this and that’s why his approach to building the Mets into a perennial winner has and will follow a similar approach to Schuerhloz’s.  The advantage for Omar of course is that he has all of Fred Wilpon’s money at his disposal.  Minaya has shown that he spends it wisely.  

Shortly the Mets will clinch the division, most likely in Pittsburgh but the Mets-Braves “thing” isn’t over just yet.  The Mets play the Braves in Atlanta the final week of the season for three games.  It’s possible, if things stay as they are now, the Braves will be fighting for a wild card spot.  So the Mets still have another opportunity to deal the Braves a crushing blow by preventing them from reaching the post season.   Now that’s kicking a mule when it’s down.

Extra innings:  The Mets magic number is 3.  If the Mets win tonight and the Phillies lose a double header in Atlanta, the Mets clinch.  However there is more rain predicted in Atlanta and what are the odds of the Braves sweeping the Phillies?  I continue to predict champagne in Pittsburgh.

My mistake, yesterday I said that the Mets would start the NLDS on Wednesday if they play the wild card.  That’s incorrect; they will play on Wednesday if they face one of the other division winners.