"It's easy to find a culprit — the Braves have scored only 12 runs while losing five of six, a slump that followed a five-game winning streak."

Not really, that's very shortsighted. This isn't a collapse like the Mets had a few years ago, the Phillies are just outpacing the Braves. The Phillies are the defending NL champs and are the hottest team in all baseball since the third week of July. They now hold the best record in the NL and the 4th best record in all baseball. That's even with a recent 4 game series lose to the Astros, several hitting slumps of their own, and a lot of injuries. But their bullpen has had an insanely low ERA the past several months.

Lets be for real, the Phillies have been the best NL team by a large margin for going on three years now. The only reason they didn't lead wire to wire and bury all the other teams was injuries. This was inevitable once they got healthy. It wont even be close in the end. The Phillies and Braves have 6 more games against each other left this season and no way the Braves win those series. They would be very lucky to split and that's not going to win them the division. Instead of making excuses for the Braves you should be giving credit to the Phillies.

Bobby Cox needs to stop playing the gentle grandpa to this boys. He needs to play hard-ball with his non-producers. Bench Lee for a couple days, put Hinske at first. STOP playing McClouth (.160 something average) and put Diaz in. STOP pitching that disaster..Kawakami 1-11! Tell Melky Cabrerra.."next time you don't hustle to first...you're on the bench for the rest of the year. Ask Derek Low.."Are you ready to retire, or do you have anything left?"

I don't know which collapse is more pathetic...Braves, Cardinals, of Padres. Your vote on this question would be most appreciated. I vote Cards, then Braves, then Pads.

If you can't hit the ball and you can't win on the road, you can't win a pennant. As simple as that.