Atlanta Braves Fall to Last in Division with Recent Loss to St. Louis ... - Yahoo! Sports

In less than a week ago the Atlanta Braves were competing for the top spot in the division with the Washington Nationals. However, the team has now fallen to last in the division, as the team lost their eighth straight game on May 28 to the St. Louis Cardinals by the score of 8-2. Lance Lynn picked up his eighth win of the season for the Cardinals, while Tommy Hanson had his fourth loss.

Tommy Hanson

Going into the May 28 game I thought Hanson would finally help the Braves to get out of the slump, as he had won two out of his last three decisions and seemed to be pitching well. Unfortunately that didn't happen for Hanson and the Braves, as Tommy gave up six runs on eight hits in less than four innings pitched for the day. He just never really kept the ball down for his entire start, and because of that the Cardinals were able to tee off on him. Combine that with the usual three walks each game and there is a recipe for disaster, which is exactly what happened against the Cardinals

The Slump

Everything seems to be going wrong for the team right now; it is hard to pick out one particular area and say that if the Braves could improve in that then they would get back to their winning ways. Injuries have hurt the team a lot recently, with Brian McCann, David Ross, Chipper Jones, and Freddie Freeman among those spending time on the bench. Freeman has been arguably the most productive hitter on the team this year before he started getting vision problems, and he still hasn't been able to sort it out yet. Jason Heyward was expected to have a great season after working everything out with his swing, but has been terrible to say the least this year.

The bullpen hasn't been anywhere near as good as it was last year, and the team needs to find someone to replace Livan Hernandez. Lastly, the starting pitching has been lagging as well over the past week, with no one really stepping it up to help get Atlanta back into the win column. Every aspect of the ballclub is underperforming right now, and hopefully the team will get things turned around sooner rather than later, because there aren't many let-ups in the schedule coming up any time soon.

Ryan Kekoufski is a lifelong Atlanta Braves fan. Follow him on Twitter @RyanKekoufski.