Atlanta Braves Baseball: Bring On The Phillies!

The Atlanta Braves are at a crossroads. After dismantling the Dodgers, who have the best record in the NL, the Braves came home to face the surging Nationals.

Before you laugh, consider that those Nats were riding an eight game winning streak with a sweep of the hot Florida Marlins as part of said streak.

On Tuesday, Tommy Hanson continued his Rookie of the Year quest with a nine strike-out performance in six and two-thirds innings for the win. Of course, the Braves bats stayed alive in scoring eight runs as well.

Wednesday night it was the bullpen that held thing tight for Derek Lowe until the Braves offense could create some distance in the bottom of the eighth in a 6-2 win.

Oh and that trade for Adam LaRoche, it has worked out fairly well.

He hit his second and third homeruns since joining the team for the second time, and he's hitting .344 in the nine games he's played for the Braves.

Garrett Anderson and Martin Prado each added solo HR's on Wednesday as well.

The Braves are 18-9 since the All-Star break and are riding a season high five game winning streak. This is the second such streak this season. The last five game win streak for Atlanta included a sweep over the hated Philadelphia Phillies.

Unfortunately, the Braves followed that streak with a three game losing streak including two straight losses to a Nationals team that had won 24 games up to that point.

This time, however, is different. The Braves have won their past games with a combined 23-5 score.

Chipper Jones, despite missing the final three games of the Dodgers series, is on fire while Garrett Anderson is hitting .313 in the second half.

That guy the Braves got for Jeff Francoeur, Ryan Church is hitting .353 with the Braves in the 30 games he's played with a Tomahawk on his uniform.

Yunel Escobar is hitting .354 with four homeruns since the break. That Prado fella, whose coming-out party began during the three game sweep of the 'Phils back in late-June, has continued to prove that his insertion in the lineup was the spark this team needed.

Adding Omar Infante back into the mix is basically like making a trade for a great hitter in midseason. Infante was hitting .349 when he was hit by a pitch that broke a bone in his hand in May. He returned to the lineup with a 1-for-4 performance on Tuesday night. He's a definite upgrade over Diory Hernandez.

As if all that wasn't enough, the Braves will welcome Tim Hudson back to the third ranked pitching staff in major league baseball next week sometime. That's like making another trade, but this time it is for a great pitcher.

This was the plan all along. Of course, there was no way of knowing the Braves would be this hot leading up those returns, but the fact that it happened this way is enough to get Braves fans beside themselves with high expectations for the first time since 2005.

As of right now, the Braves sit tied for second with Florida, four and a half out of first in the NL East as they welcome the first place Phillies to Atlanta on Friday night. In the Wild Card race, the Braves sit three games back in a tie for third.

The Braves basically control their own destiny with 13 of their next 20 games against the Marlins and Phillies. The other seven are against the Diamondbacks, Mets, and Padres.

As hot as the Braves are right now, they need to get even hotter over the next three weeks.

Most observers and fans thought that the Braves were at least a year or two away from being competitive again; these Atlanta Braves are proving those people wrong.

It's time to make the move; bring on the Phillies!