With 100 games left, here's 5 early takeaways about MLB-best Braves

This story was excerpted from Mark Bowman’s Braves Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

ATLANTA -- Drake Baldwin is about two weeks from rejoining the Braves' lineup, and Hurston Waldrep is about four weeks from adding to the rotation depth that hasn’t been an issue since many of us prematurely worried about it when four starting pitchers were injured during Spring Training.

Yeah, Austin Riley has endured the most frustrating 60-game stretch of his career, and Ha-Seong Kim entered Wednesday with as many hits (4) in 45 at-bats as Kyle Farmer has recorded with just 14 at-bats.

But for the most part, things continue to go right for manager Walt Weiss and the Braves, who remain on pace for 110-plus wins. Here are a few thoughts about where the team stands with 100 games remaining.

1. Weiss delivered good news on Tuesday when he said Baldwin could return during the next homestand, which runs June 16-21. Missing just a month with a strained oblique seems to be the best-possible outcome. Baldwin entered Wednesday tied with James Wood for the NL lead in weighted runs created plus (160).

There’s no doubt the Braves miss Baldwin’s impact bat. But entering Wednesday, they had gone 9-4 and scored 5.4 runs per game since he was injured on May 18. They scored 5.2 runs per game while going 32-16 in the 48 games played before he strained his right oblique. Don’t try to make sense of it. Just accept that this team is really good.

2. Weiss deserves a lot of credit for regularly playing Jorge Mateo instead of Kim over the past week. Mateo has always had incredible tools. The 30-year-old veteran was the Yankees’ top prospect (per MLB Pipeline) in 2016. New York’s No. 2 prospect at the time was Aaron Judge.

Who knows how long Mateo continues to shine with both the bat and the glove. But Weiss has shown he’ll stick with the hot hand, even if that means sparingly playing Kim, who is on a one-year, $20 million deal. President of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos also deserves credit for giving Weiss the confidence to know he supports these kinds of decisions.

3. Chris Sale will enter Thursday’s start against the Blue Jays ranked fourth in the Majors (third in the NL) with a 2.01 ERA. The 37-year-old hurler has continued to impress through his first 11 starts. His four-seamer averaged 97 mph during last week’s start at Fenway Park. That’s the highest average he has produced with that pitch in a game since the end of the 2018 season.

With another strong start, Sale could join Roger Clemens (2005), Justin Verlander (2022), Tim Hudson (2014) and Kenny Rogers (2005) as the only pitchers 37 or older to produce a sub 2.00 ERA through the first 12 starts of a season going back to the start of 2000.

4. Matt Olson played in his 844th consecutive game on Wednesday. Barring any postponements, he’ll pass Stan Musial and rank eighth on the all-time list on Aug. 2. There’s at least a chance Olson could eventually rank No. 3 on this list. But he’ll never catch Lou Gehrig, who played 2,130 consecutive games.

With MLB celebrating Lou Gehrig Day on Tuesday, Olson tallied a pair of extra-base hits, including a unique game-winning homer. Given Olson is the game’s current Iron Man, there was at least reason to wonder if the home run was wind-aided or Gehrig-aided?

5. Within a recent newsletter, I wrote that nine Braves are deserving of an All-Star nod. My colleague Jason Foster mentioned Dominic Smith as another potential candidate. Yeah, I know he’s not going to get more votes than Shohei Ohtani as the NL’s designated hitter. But Foster was correct to include Smith as an underdog selection.

Anyhow, my nine candidates include five pitchers: Sale, Bryce Elder, Raisel Iglesias, Robert Suarez and Dylan Lee. The pitchers aren’t part of the ballot process that began on Thursday.

The Braves position players I think could be elected include Ronald Acuña Jr., Michael Harris II, Olson and Baldwin. Take a look at the ballot and determine which Braves you believe should be in the NL’s starting lineup.