With the end of the regular baseball season in sight, I decided I would make some predictions about the Atlanta Braves and the Florida Marlins, both teams which have shots at the playoffs. I've never really done this before -- made an "official" prediction about a sports team -- and this will be the first time I do so in writing. This should make the rest of the season a little more interesting for me, especially since the Braves are -- barring self-destruction -- pretty much playoff bound already. Now, I'll have the chance to measure their results against my expectations.

I'm just going to assume that the Phillies, Mets, and Expos have no chance at this point, so I'm only going to focus on the previously mentioned teams. The Braves are - at the time of this writing - on top of the division with a 78-54 (.591) record and an 8 game lead over the Florida Marlins, who are about 3 games back in the wild card race with 70 wins and 62 losses (.530 winning percentage). Again, since there's no way I can bet against the home team and all signs point to another Division Championship, I'm banking on the Braves to win the NL East.

However, I want to take the prediction a little farther and say that I expect the Braves to win 18 of the last 30 games they play. This would give them a final record of 96-66, a fair estimate, I think, based on the way they're playing now. In fact, because the Braves will play only 9 games of the last 30 against 2 teams (Marlins and Cubs) that have winning records it could be really easy for the Braves to have 20+ more wins before the season concludes.

So, here are my projections for each of the Braves' upcoming series:
1. Montreal (3 Games): Braves take 2
2. Philadelphia (4 Games): Braves take 3
3. Montreal (3 Games): Braves take 2
4. NY Mets (5 Games): Braves take 4
5. Florida (3 Games): Braves take 1
6. Cincinnati (3 Games): Braves take 1
7. Florida (3 Games): Braves take 2
8. NY Mets (3 Games) Braves take 2
9. Chicago Cubs (3 Games) Braves take 1

No matter how the Braves win these games, if they do win 18 (60% of their remaining games), the Marlins (who are a hot team right now) would have to put together a tremendous run of 26 wins (and only lose 4 games!), or a .866 winning percentage, in order just to tie for division lead.

Well, hopefully I haven't jinxed the Braves by putting this up on a website. Unlike early on in the season when the Atlanta team looked washed up, I feel fairly confident that it will come through with an unprecedented 13th consecutive Division Championship. Plus, the feeling I'm getting from the reports and the player interviews is that this team has a different clubhouse atmosphere from past seasons. This year, there were no expectations to win, so it's much like back in the early nineties when the Braves were the underdogs.

But that's it -- I'm not going to make any predictions about the post-season.