Braves Must Turn Around Woeful Record vs. One Division Quickly

Baseball fans know things are not going well when their club is mentioned in the same category as the Colorado Rockies and Miami Marlins.

Those are the only two teams in the National League this season with worst records against the NL West than the Atlanta Braves. That's it.

After Wednesday's 2-1 defeat to the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Braves fell to 6-15 against the division.

The only NL West team the Braves have a winning record against is the Rockies. While facing the Diamondbacks, Los Angeles Dodgers, and San Diego Padres, the Braves are 4-14 this season.

Fortunately, the Braves don't play the NL West very often. But the problem right now for Brian Snitker's club is even after the two games versus the Diamondbacks to begin this week, the Braves play the NL West in seven of the next 10 games.

The final three of those seven NL West contests will be at home against the Rockies. Even after Colorado's sweep of the Marlins this week, the Rockies still have a win percentage below .200 with a 12-50 record.

If the Braves can't win the series against the Rockies, there might not be any remaining hope for this team.

But to get to the Colorado series not in an even worse hole than they are currently in, the Braves have to start beating the NL West.

For this weekend, the Braves will fly to the west coast for the first time since the opening week of the season to square off against the San Francisco Giants. During that first week, the Braves went 0-7 versus the Dodgers and Padres.

A similar kind of performance in San Francisco could drop the Braves even further than seven games below .500.

Up first, though, will be Thursday's series finale against the Diamondbacks.

In the first two games against Arizona this week, the Braves tallied just four total runs. It took until the fourth inning Tuesday and the sixth frame Wednesday for the team's first hit. Right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr. broke both no-hit bids.

The Atlanta offense has to be better.

Since both teams will be traveling after Thursday's game, the Braves-Diamondbacks series finale will be a businessman special, beginning at 12:15 pm ET. With the Braves trying to quickly forget about their offensive struggles and record versus NL opponents, the earlier start might be just what the doctor ordered.

"What we need to do right now is play the next game. The only way we're going to turn this around is to play the next game. So if it comes quicker, great," said Snitker after Tuesday's loss.

"We can go out and win a game and put all this behind us."