There has been no manager more impressive than Atlanta’s Bobby Cox in my lifetime. This is why, as the July 31 trade deadline approaches, I’m actively rooting for Braves GM John Schuerholz to do the right thing and trade for some pitching. Cox deserves a shot at getting the Braves to October yet again.

If you hadn’t noticed, the Braves are back in the playoff race; their recent 8–2 run had them five games back in the wild-card standings entering last night’s game with St. Louis. While this is as much a testament to the pitiable state of competition in the National League as anything else — the team was five games under .500, and behind seven other teams — any time Atlanta is within range of a playoff spot, you have to like their chances at it.

What’s sustained the Braves in their comeback from a June slide that left them 13 games under .500 at the beginning of the month is an astonishing offensive onslaught. Going into last night’s game, the Braves had averaged 12 runs over their last five games, and led by Chipper Jones’s attack on Paul Waner’s record for consecutive games with an extra-base hit (14), the entire lineup was brutalizing pitchers.

This month, among Braves with at least 25 at-bats, the lowest OPS is .878. Jones is slugging 1.136.Second baseman Marcus Giles is hitting like Rogers Hornsby, catcher Brian McCann like Mike Piazza, and someone named Scott Thorman is hitting .400. The team can do absolutely no wrong at the plate and has fast closed on the Mets for the league lead in runs. The routine poundings of enemy staffs has even put the Braves’ run differential in positive numbers, something not usually associated with a sub-.500 team. Considering the varied flaws of the rest of the league’s pseudo-contenders, it’s not hard to envision the Braves riding this offense all the way up the standings, even if they don’t quite keep hitting like the 1999 Indians.

Even the team’s pitching hasn’t been as bad as its reputation lately. This month the Braves sport a semi-respectable 4.88 ERA, inflated by the poor performances of Tim Hudson (9.22 ERA) and Horacio Ramirez (7.07). Hudson is a great pitcher having the worst season of a fine career, and will probably get back on track, as players of his caliber almost always do; Ramirez is a very good pitcher having a short bad stretch.

These two aren’t the problem, and with John Smoltz pitching like an ace and the team finally having found a few reliable no-names who have been effective out of the bullpen, there’s little reason to think the Braves’ pitching won’t support the offense enough to get by the rest of the year.

Despite all this, there are real questions about whether the Braves are going to go for it this year, which just shows why Cox and Schuerholz are so far above their peers. If any team in all of baseball could be forgiven for taking a risk on a longshot playoff bid, it would be the team that hasn’t missed a playoff berth since 1990. The Braves need a starter and a closer, and no one would blame them for overpaying for the likes of Pittsburgh’s Robert Hernandez. There’s enough skepticism about whether they’re going to do so, though, that Smoltz has gone public with demands that the team trade for veteran help. Rumors (which speak more to perception than reality, probably) also persist that Smoltz and Hudson are potentially available in trade.

In this, Cox’s first year without legendary pitching coach Leo Mazzone, the pitching staff has collapsed just as so many predicted it would. But instead of giving up, Cox has jiggered pieces around and made them fit. His long patience with flawed young players like Jeff Francouer and Adam LaRoche has paid off. His belief in veteran shortstop Edgar Renteria, whom nearly everyone wrote off after his disastrous year in Boston, has paid off. His continual refusal to shift Chipper Jones off third base has paid off as left field has been held open for a bewildering variety of Triple-A players who seem always to produce.This team is as good a testament as any number of better ones to the creativity of Cox and Schuerholz.

But in the end, the reason they’ve always been so good is a clear-sighted realism about where they are and what they need. You’re just not going to see any top prospects traded for middle relievers, or any unbearable salaries added for the sake of the stretch drive. If in this, a year when everything’s gone wrong for weeks at a time, the Braves can have a shot at the playoffs this late, the same will be true next year, and they’re not going to endanger that. Even in a losing year they show why they’re still the best. It’s hard not to admire that.