Tracking History

So, after yesterday's loss to the Cubs, the Braves currently stand at 32-35 (.478) on the season and 7.5 games behind the first-place Phillies. I decided to take a look back at the past decade and see where teams who have started out their season at 32-25 ended up, here's the results:

Year	Team	GB	W-L After	Final W-L	Final GB
2000	CIN	6.5	53-42	85-77	10.0
2001	TOR	7.5	48-47	80-82	16.0
2001	OAK	20.0	70-25	102-60	14.0
2001	CWS	9.5	51-44	83-79	8.0
2002	COL	8.5	41-54	73-89	25.0
2002	BAL	11.5	35-60	67-95	36.5
2003	ARI	10.0	52-43	84-78	16.5
2003	BAL	7.5	39-59	71-91	30.0
2004	ATL	4.5	64-31	96-66	---
2006	MIL	7.5	43-52	75-87	8.5
2007	FLA	5.5	39-56	71-91	18.0

As you see, there's been a mixed bag of success and failures for those teams who have had the same start as Atlanta over the past decade.

With a 32-35 start, it takes at least a 49-46 run over the rest of the season to get back to .500, something only four of the eleven teams were able to accomplish. Of course, there are always the '04 Braves and '01 Athletics who were able to close the season with records of 64-31 and 70-25, respectively.

I think probably the most interesting bit here is only three teams out of the eleven were able to close the distance between themselves and first place over the course of the season -- the aforementioned Atlanta and Oakland teams, along with the '01 White Sox.

Even with the Braves and Athletics successes, the average number of wins for the remainder of the season is just under 49. Only time shall tell where the '08 Braves will fall on this list, but as we all know, it's certainly going to be an uphill battle the rest of the way.