The Morning TiltFriday, May 8, 2026

Every power ranking in America agrees the Braves are the best team in baseball — except ESPN. Sale at Dodger Stadium tonight, the Benz farewell tomorrow, and the lottery is Sunday.

Braves

CBS Sports. BetMGM. The Big Lead. Eastern Herald. All have Atlanta number one. ESPN has them third, behind the Dodgers and Yankees, a ranking that requires ignoring the best record, the best run differential, and the most runs scored in the sport. Dex has the full argument, and for once he is being conservative.

The offensive numbers: 212 runs scored, most in baseball. Best run differential in the sport. Top three in every major hitting category. And Bryce Elder is sitting on a 2.02 ERA through eight starts. The rotation behind Sale and Strider has turned from depth into a weapon.

Chris Sale takes the mound at Dodger Stadium tonight against Emmet Sheehan. 10:10 PM. The first crack happened in Seattle. The repair starts in Los Angeles.

Hawks

Two days. The lottery is Sunday at McCormick Place — 3 PM on ABC.

The front office hosted pre-draft workouts this week: Flory Bidunga from Kansas, Ugonna Onyenso from Virginia, Peter Suder from Miami of Ohio, Milos Uzan from Houston. The physicality gap New York exposed in six games is the draft brief in one sentence — find size, find toughness, find it fast.

Quin Snyder's extension talks are reportedly progressing. Resolve the coaching question before the draft and the front office can focus entirely on the board. Simone on the ghost of the No. 1 pick and what the lottery means for the franchise.

Falcons

Harold Perkins Jr. signed his rookie deal, completing the draft class. The sixth-round linebacker from LSU is the last piece of a defense-heavy haul — four of the Falcons' six picks play that side of the ball. Whether Avieon Terrell can line up alongside brother A.J. in the secondary without creating a coverage identity crisis is the sleeper question of the summer.

OTAs are 10 days away. Matt Ryan, in his first spring as team president, said he "can't yet say" who starts Week 1. That is not evasion. The competition has no leader because no one has taken the field yet. May 18 changes that.

Atlanta United

Tomorrow night is the last time.

Atlanta United host LA Galaxy at Mercedes-Benz Stadium at 7:30. After the final whistle, the building belongs to FIFA — eight World Cup matches, a semifinal, and 98 days before United walk out of that tunnel again.

Three straight wins have the club in its best form since last May, and the Galaxy are the perfect mirror — the Galaxy on 13 points and United on 10, both with histories that tower over their present. Alzate is out. Almirón is questionable. The farewell lineup will be thin, and the youth may carry the sendoff. Tito on la despedida and why the Benz going dark matters more than the table.

One more thing. Ted Turner died Wednesday at 87. He owned the Hawks and the Braves, built CNN from Atlanta when the national media was not paying attention, and believed this was a sports city before the rest of the country caught on. Inside the NBA aired a tribute. The bigger one starts in five weeks, when the building he never saw repurposed hosts the World Cup and the city he bet on proves him right.