Ryan Flaherty has been bright star so far for the Atlanta Braves offense

The Atlanta Braves are off to a pretty good start so far this season, but we’ve got a lot of baseball left to go in the 2018 season, which is still less than a month old.

As of Monday at noon, the Braves were 8-6 overall, 4-2 at home, 4-4 on the road and 5-4 against National League East opponents. Despite their winning record against division opponents, the Braves were third in the NL East behind the 9-5 Phillies and the 12-2 Mets.

The Braves haven’t played the Mets so far this year, but Atlanta went 2-1 against the Phillies in their opening series of the season, which was played in Atlanta on March 29-31. The game they lost was only by one run, and one of the games Atlanta won in the series was by 13 runs.

Of the six games Atlanta had lost overall through Monday, two of them were by only one run, and they’d been shut out only once, in a 2-0 loss to the Nationals on Monday of last week in Washington, D.C. On the other side of the coin, Atlanta has posted two shutout wins, both 4-0 victories on the road, against the Colorado Rockies and the Chicago Cubs.

Atlanta looked to gain some ground in their division on Monday when they began a three-game homestand against the Phillies in Atlanta. That series was scheduled to wrap up yesterday (Wednesday) and then the Braves will launch into a four-game series against the division-leading Mets in Atlanta. The Braves-Mets series is scheduled to begin today (Thursday) and close out on Sunday.

After Sunday, Atlanta will take off on a 10-day road trip that will take them through Cincinnati, Philadelphia and New York before they play a three-game series against the Giants in Atlanta May 4-6.

So far this season, third baseman Ryan Flaherty has been the bright star on the Atlanta offense. As of Monday, he had the third-highest batting average in the entire Major Leagues, .366. Through Monday, in 41 at bats, he’d recorded 15 hits, driven in three runs, scored seven runs with four doubles, two stolen bases and six walks to his credit.

Flaherty, a 31-year-old native of Maine, should be no stranger to SEC baseball fans. Out of high school, Flaherty played two seasons at Vanderbilt, where he was an All-SEC selection beside teammates – and future Major Leaguers – David Price and Pedro Alvarez. Flaherty was a first-round selection by the Cubs in 2008 and joined the Braves earlier this year when Atlanta signed him to a one-year, $750,000 contract. The way that he’s hitting the baseball, he’s been a good bargain for the Braves so far this season.

In the end, we’ve got a lot of Major League baseball action left to enjoy this season and only time will tell if Atlanta will be able to top their performance from last season. A lot can happen between now and October, especially when you factor in injuries, trades and other unpredictable events. In the meantime, the fans – myself included – can sit back and watch it all unfold as the days toward the World Series roll off the calendar.