Memorial Day a normal benchmark for a regular season
The Braves should be hosting the St. Louis Cardinals today. Who knows. Maybe Mike Foltynewicz would be getting revenge for what happened last October in game five.
Or maybe Marcell Ozuna was taking out his frustrations on his old teammates.
It would probably be a good pitching matchup, maybe Max Fried versus his old high school teammate Jack Flaherty. Both teams would probably be at the top of the standings, maybe even in first place.
But on this Memorial Day, usually reserved for making some conclusions on each team's chances for the rest of the season, we can only wonder.
The Braves would have played 54 games coming into the scheduled matchup with the Cardinals. That would be the one-third mark in the season. That's why many say this is the day where you can determine if a team is going to be a contender or a pretender.
Last year, the Braves actually didn't play on Memorial Day. They were a game-and-a-half back in the standings going into the holiday, and in two weeks they would take over first place for the rest of the season.
The Braves looked mighty good in spring training. Their starting pitching had been solid, while the bullpen was almost perfect. The lineup still needed the last two weeks of spring training to take shape, but it was happening.
Then, the Grapefruit League was paused. And we're all still waiting.
We can only imagine how the Braves players would be doing, and we can only hope the shortened season we pray will happen will bring positive results.
And we've waited this long, so we'll wait a bit longer.
Listen to The Bill Shanks Show weekdays at 3:00 p.m. ET on Middle Georgia’s ESPN. You can listen online at TheSuperStations.com. Follow Bill on Twitter at @billshanks and you can email him at thebillshanksshow@yahoo.com.