The Atlanta Braves are going to be alright

The Atlanta Braves sit at 43-33, 10 games over the .500 mark and four games behind the Philadelphia Phillies for the coveted first place spot in the NL East.

The Braves enter their three game weekend series in San Diego on the mend. And when these guys get fully healthy they’ve got the opportunity to be a downright scary squad.

They’ve weathered some tough storms in the early part of this season, and have still managed to play 10 games above .500 baseball. They’ve gotten barely anything out of Jason Heyward–who someday should evolve into the biggest prize in all of the game. It might not be this year, but it’s fair to expect that Heyward will perform better for the remainder of the year than he has so far. Another player who falls in that category is Dan Uggla, who has been way worse than his career norms.

If they can just remain reasonably healthy and continue to tread water at the current pace for a few more weeks, they’re going to get back Martin Prado and Tommy Hanson back by the middle of July. That’s when this team will open it’s sales and be running wide awake, we presume. By then, they could be the best all around team in baseball.

This squad is likable for many reasons.

One of those reasons? They’re our MLB: The Show ’11 team of choice (with the addition of Michael Bourn). Johnny Venters, Chipper Jones, Craig Kimbrel, Uggla, Heyward, Prado, Jordan Schaefer, Nate Mclouth, Brian McCann, the list goes on and on. It’s a nice nucleus they’ve compiled to run down those Phillies.

The Braves are going to be right the thick of things until the end of things. Count on it.