The Atlanta Braves have the best record in baseball but go into postseason play with serious doubts about whether their starting pitching is good enough to win a championship. This is especially ironic for a team that has gone to the playoffs twelve consecutive seasons on the strength of superb starting pitching but only won a single World Series.

Two AJC columnists, Terence Moore and Mark Bradley have differing views on what this means. Moore thinks the Braves can get it done on the strength of their surprisingly strong offense.

I'm not saying the Braves definitely will win the last game of this baseball season. In addition to their wretched history, you have the crapshoot that is the combination of the division series and league championship series before the World Series. Once, making the postseason meant winning the pennant, and then you were four victories away from taking it all. Now you are 11 victories away from a world championship.

***

Here's what I'm saying: The Braves have their best chance for glory since David Justice's bat and Tom Glavine's arm won the sixth and decisive game of the 1995 World Series.

These Braves are better than those Braves, mostly because those Braves couldn't hit. These Braves have the ability to do so dramatically. The most striking feat for these Braves during the regular season wasn't their six guys with 20 or more home runs, their four with 100 or more RBIs or their five with 100 or more runs scored.

They struck out less than any team in the National League. You can make the case that the Braves were the most prolific team in baseball in that regard. Although the Anaheim Angels had 838 strikeouts to the Braves' 933, the Angels play in the AL, where designated hitters bat instead of strikeout-prone pitchers.

Why is this splendid news? Because scoring becomes tougher in October, and teams that advance are often teams that can manufacture runs by putting the ball in play. These Braves are wonderful at putting the ball in play.

They'll also have Javy Lopez throughout the playoffs. In the past, he didn't catch on days when Greg Maddux pitched. Something about Cox wishing to give Lopez a break from catching here and there.

Whatever. Those silly days are gone. Cox says Lopez will start all postseason games this year. In other words, no more hoping and praying that Lopez's backup will hit out of his mind. Lopez has done that all season.

That leaves pitching. Gone are the days of Cy Maddux, Cy Glavine and Cy Smoltz. Even so, the Braves have Russ Ortiz, the NL leader in victories, and he is just a year removed from a mighty October with the San Francisco Giants. They also have Mike Hampton and Maddux, both rejuvenated during the last couple of months.

If you have three nice starters in the postseason, you can go far. If you have three nice starters and Smoltz, you can go further than that.

Bradley demurs:

I'm a pitching guy, and pitching, I'm sorry to report, is the reason these Braves won't win the World Series. I'm not even sure they'll survive Round 1. The Cubs have better starting pitchers.

About here, you're saying: "Wait a minute. Haven't the Braves had better starting pitching those other Octobers? Why didn't they win every time?" Because they didn't necessarily have better starting pitching those other Octobers. Atlanta hasn't yet lost a postseason series in which it outpitched the opposition, but it has lost six October series to an opponent that actually scored fewer runs. Any championship-caliber team, see, stands to have championship-caliber pitching.

That these Braves tied the imperial Yankees for baseball's best record is a tribute to Bobby Cox and this batting order. The starting pitching is only OK. The bullpen is nothing special and is infirm to boot. The defense is substandard. The 2003 Braves are here because they hit like crazy, and some have read that as a repudiation of the longstanding Braves Method. It isn't. This season is the exception that proves the rule. It is an exception that will be rendered unexceptional by the quality of pitchers waiting in the playoffs.

Personally, I think the Braves pitching is good enough to give them a chance. But the offense will definitely have to carry the team. But there are no gimmes this year. The Braves' 1st round opponent, the Chicago Cubs, are arguably the hottest team in baseball. And it's just a best of five series, so anything can happen. The NLCS will likely pit them against Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants. And the American League has several impressive teams vying for the pennant, with the Yankees the obvious favorite. So it will take a sustained streak of decent pitching and excellent hitting to get the job done.