Atlanta General Manager admits Braves aren’t up to expectations.

Before a game, Atlanta Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos held a press conference, which pretty well sums up the team’s performance. “We’ve done well this season, so I don’t normally do scrums,” he said to reporters on Wednesday. “If I’m doing them, that means we’re not playing well.”

Naturally, all of this is relative. In the National League, the Braves hold the fourth-best record. However, they were 10 games behind Philadelphia, who leads the NL East, going into Wednesday night’s game at Baltimore, where they had lost four straight games (which they extended to five with a 4-2 loss). Anthopoulos was therefore available to talk about that disheartening fact.

He conceded that the Braves don’t appear to be playing well by their standards, but there is still a significant amount of the season left. The Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia are the three NL teams currently leading their respective divisions by a sizable margin. Atlanta is the best of the rest at 35-30 after losing on Wednesday. Actually, just five of the league’s teams were above.500 as of Wednesday. The Braves finished 88-73 three seasons ago, but that was enough to win the division. The World Series was eventually won by them.

“The Phillies are obviously playing exceptionally well — best team arguably in the game right now — but it’s about making sure you get to the playoffs one way or the other,” Anthopoulos stated. “I guarantee that if you took a lot of these teams and their front offices right now in the NL, they would all tell you the same thing. With the exception of the Brewers, Dodgers, and Phillies, nobody is performing as they had anticipated.” Even still, Atlanta hadn’t lost five in a row since 2017, the previous season the Braves failed to win the NL East. The New York Mets had a sizable lead, but the Braves rallied from behind to win the division two years ago.

Due to a knee injury that has sidelined reigning NL MVP Ronald Acuna Jr. for the whole season, a comparable comeback will be difficult this year. Although nothing is imminent, Anthopoulos said he has been more aggressive than normal in chasing trades. “It appears that the offensive problems are dispersed throughout the league,” stated Anthopoulos. “This is what many general managers are saying. People believe they aren’t hitting as hard as they could.