Since 2006, the Mets-Braves rivalry has become somewhat rekindled, though it has taken a major backseat to the Mets-Phillies rivalry in that same span. The rivalry has suffered from the Atlanta Braves’ lack of contention in the second halves of the past three years, as well. As a result, the splits in the series have developed a bit of a trend:

2006: Mets 11-7 against Braves (5-4 first half, 6-3 second half)
2007: Mets 9-9 against Braves (3-6 first half, 6-3 second half)
2008 (thus far): Mets 4-7 against Braves (2-7 first half, 2-0 second half with 7 more games to play)

2006 is pretty split, which makes sense because the Mets had the NL East in control early on. 2007, though, was the year the Mets just kept losing 2 out of 3 to the Braves (they did in their first four series with them.) They finally evened out the score with the last two series, when the Braves fell peaceably out of the race.

This year isn’t really that consistent failure against the Braves in 2007, as much as it is that disasterous 4-game sweep in May (of which I attended two games in a doubleheader.) That sweep has really skewed the Mets’ first half record against Atlanta, putting it at the same as their first half record against Atlanta in their horrid 2005 match-ups.

But the Braves have once again fell out of contention in 2008, and this series has been in the Mets’ control, not to jinx tomorrow’s game. The Braves have not been good in the role of the spoiler against the Mets the past few seasons, which hopefully continues.