Major League Baseball

Daily Buzz: Braves aren't waffling

Published Aug. 8, 2013 1:00 a.m. ET

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Sam Gardner

See, Turner Field debuted its new Waffle House concession stand on July 26, before the Braves, at the time coming off a four-game split with the Mets at Citi Field, played host to the St. Louis Cardinals.

Since then, the Braves have been hotter than a flat top grill, and don’t have a loss to their name since Waffle House opened its doors inside their park. In that time, Atlanta has gone from 57-45, with an eight-game lead on Philadelphia and Washington in the NL East to 70-45, with 15½ games separating them from the second-place Nationals.

The Braves have been hitting .298 as a team since their winning streak started, with an OPS of .812, after hitting .249 with an OPS of .731 in the first 102 games. And the team ERA over the last 13 games has been 2.23 after posting a collective 3.38 ERA before July 26.

Outfielder Jordan Schafer hasn’t been a part of all of Atlanta’s recent success — he’s been on the DL with a stress fracture in his ankle since July 4 — but that doesn’t mean he can’t recognize the source of the Braves’ recent good fortune:

After six straight road wins, the Braves return home Friday to kick off a three-game set against the lowly Miami Marlins, the first part of a nine-game homestand. The longest win streak of the live ball era is 21 games, and should the Braves stay on their current country-style gravy train throughout the homestand, they would be the new record holders by next Sunday.

They would celebrate, I assume, with a trip to Waffle House.

Now, for some links:

• President Obama honored Negro League ballplayers at the White House.

• Johnny Damon took a shot at A-Rod and the 2009 World Series team they played on together.

• Tiger almost got trampled by autograph-seekers:

• Avid sports collector seeks home for his trove.

• TCU coach Gary Patterson criticized LSU coach Les Miles over Miles' disciplinary standards.

• A fan interrupted Chelsea and Real Madrid and shared a tender moment with Christiano Ronaldo:

• Defining De'Anthony Thomas' role at Oregon is as elusive as Thomas is.

• The Western Hockey League's Portland Winterhawks are giving fans a nice gift.

• Add this to your list of awesome baseball manager tantrums, as a minor league skipper gets tossed, then spikes his dip on home plate:

• A Ravens rookie got sent on a Chick-fil-A run:

• UNLV is looking to Finland to improve its football team.

• Gah! Frankenfish!

• Colorado football player rocks Wild Thing haircut:

• Chipper Jones has had enough with Twitter:

• The NHL promoted which ref?

• A Chicago Cubs minor leaguer tossed a no-hitter.

• Cody Zeller and Victor Oladipo dunk on fellow NBA rookies:

• Via @CrashburnAlley, here's Chase Utley leveling Dioner Navarro, a hit that sent Navarro to the hospital.

• Indiana will face Louisville at Madison Square Garden in 2014.

• Mangini's Mess: How Eric Mangini put on a clinic on how to drive team morale into the ground.

• A guy handcuffed himself inside a coffin, then let people push that coffin out of a plane 14,000 feet up:

• A lawsuit against Mike Gundy over a contractor's Sooners T-shirt has been dismissed.

• Get your tickets now, Chris Kluwe will be speaking at an atheist convention.

• This slip of the tongue seems to rear its ugly head every once in a while, and now Bobby Parnell has become the latest athlete to be mistakenly diagnosed with a herniated... well, you know:

• The NCAA is selling an autographed Reggie Bush photo from a vacated game.

• Hulk Hogan says he's developing a movie about his life, brother.

• Lion gets a tiger tattoo:

• Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson on Johnny Manziel's autograph controversy: "I don't think anybody wants any of our guys' autographs."

• Will Justin Tuck do some lining up at linebacker for the Giants this year?

• Novak Djokovic and a giant tennis ball danced after Djokovic’s second-round win in Montreal:

• A former Kentucky basketball player was sentenced to two years in prison for oral sex with a minor.

• Florida Gators redshirt senior Andre Debose will miss the season after tearing his ACL.

• Here is a woman who is comically scared of her ride-along in a race car:

• This crazy pool dunk includes a rollerblader:

• A four-star hoops recruit tweeted out text messages he has received from college coaches.

• David Ortiz is appealing the $5,000 fine he received for destroying a dugout phone. Good luck with that one, Papi.

• Jose Canseco wants to lend the Washington Post a hand:

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