The Braves aren’t surprising anyone this season. They’re just beating everyone.

PHILADELPHIA — On July 31, the Atlanta Braves beat the Washington Nationals in a noontime matinee, then returned to the visitors’ clubhouse at Nationals Park and, like much of the baseball-watching public, spent the 3 o’clock hour watching MLB Network and refreshing Twitter on their phones. Within minutes, as the trade deadline approached, came the news the Braves were waiting for. They packed up and headed to the airport as the teammates of three new relievers.

“All of a sudden,” Manager Brian Snitker recalled Thursday before the Braves’ game against the Philadelphia Phillies, “we had three guys fall out of the sky and join us.”

It is difficult to remember now, but that was the week the Braves/Nationals matchups felt like a race for the National League East crown. As they arrived in D.C. in late July, the Braves had just lost lineup stalwarts Nick Markakis and Dansby Swanson to injuries. Their pitching was a mess. A loss to the Nationals in the opener of that three-game series dropped their first-place lead over Washington to 4½ games.

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But as the Braves return to Washington this weekend for the final head-to-head meeting of the season with the Nationals, everything has changed. The Braves’ lead in the East, which has stretched as wide as 10 games, is now 8½ with just over two weeks left in the season, giving them a magic number of eight to clinch the division title. They are back to something resembling full strength, with Swanson having returned in late August and Markakis due back as soon as Friday night.

Dodgers own the regular season, but need a World Series title to enter larger debate

Barring one of the most shocking collapses in recent history, the question for the Braves is no longer whether they can hold off the Nationals for the division title but whether they can catch the Los Angeles Dodgers for the league’s top overall seed and home-field advantage in the NL playoffs.

They entered the weekend trailing the Dodgers by four games, but could make a strong case that they have been at least the Dodgers’ equals for months now, with a superior second-half record (37-20 vs. 35-21) and since the trade deadline (27-12 vs. 24-14), all while playing in an appreciably tougher division. It is no secret the Braves now have their sights firmly trained on the Dodgers, especially after having been bounced from the playoffs by them in a 2018 division series.

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“Last year, we lined up with them and they were better than us, and it showed,” utility man Charlie Culberson said. “This year, we know we’re a better team overall, and whoever we play, we’ll go out there prepared to win that series. And if we wind up meeting up with the Dodgers again, we’ll try to do the same thing. We know how good they are, but we know we belong, too.”

Thanks largely to the trade deadline pickups of relievers Shane Greene, Chris Martin and Mark Melancon, the Braves now have as deep and functional of a bullpen as anyone in the league, if not the majors. After a rocky start, that trio, entering this weekend, had combined for a 1.91 ERA and 35 strikeouts against just four walks in 33 innings since Aug. 17.

Another midseason pickup, left-hander Dallas Keuchel, likewise has stabilized the Braves’ starting rotation. Signed to a one-year contract in June, Keuchel, the 2015 American League Cy Young winner and a veteran of three postseason campaigns with the Houston Astros, is 5-0 with a 0.97 ERA in his past six starts.

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Rather than go all-in to catch the Dodgers for the NL’s top seed, the Braves, who own the league’s best road record (44-29), seem inclined to ease off after — technically, “if” — they clinch the East, resting many of their top performers ahead of the division series. Should they capture the No. 2 seed in the NL, they would host the champion of the NL Central, currently led by the St. Louis Cardinals, in Game 1 on Oct. 3 at SunTrust Park.

By some estimations, that might be a more favorable matchup for the Braves than a potential first-round series against the Nationals, even if the latter had to use ace Max Scherzer to survive the wild-card game. The Braves went 4-2 against the Cardinals this season, and were 9-7 against the Nationals entering this weekend’s series in Washington.

“Common sense plays a big part” in how you proceed after clinching, catcher Brian McCann said Thursday. “You see where you’re at. Maybe some guys need a [breather]. That’s the luxury of having a big lead. But I can tell you this: The guys in here want to play.”

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Among the Braves players who probably won’t be resting much: 21-year-old outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. With a home run and two stolen bases Thursday against the Phillies, Acuña, the 2018 NL rookie of the year, had 39 of the former and 36 of the latter as he closes in on becoming the fifth player in major league history to record a 40-40 season.

A year ago, the Braves, surprise champions of the East, clinched with a week to spare, then went 2-4 on a season-ending road trip against the New York Mets and Phillies before getting trounced by an aggregate score of 20-8 in their four-game loss to the Dodgers in the division series. The Braves still haven’t won a playoff series since the 2001 NLDS.

But if these six weeks since the trade deadline have proved anything, it is that the Braves’ targets have changed. This week, they surpassed their win total from a year ago. Next week, they could clinch the NL East. And beyond lies the Cardinals, the Dodgers and — who knows? — whatever comes after that.

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