The changes that led to a year Boise State won’t forget
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Paolo Uggetti, ESPN
EVERY SUNDAY DURING the football season, Spencer Danielson logs onto a Zoom call.
Danielson, like many coaches, has crafted a life built around routines. It is the way the 36-year-old Boise State head coach is able to make sense of his job and still find time for himself, his family and important individuals in his life. This call, however, holds a special place in Danielson’s busy week. It has become an essential part of his routine and journey in his first season as the Broncos’ head football coach.
As Danielson enters the virtual meeting room, on the other end, Chris Petersen does the same.
“We Zoom for an hour, no matter what,” Danielson said. “He’s my mentor.”
Life changed quickly for Danielson last year. One minute he was the defensive coordinator, and the next he was being ushered into a room with Boise State athletic director Jeramiah Dickey and named the Broncos’ interim head coach after they fired Andy Avalos.
One of the first people Danielson turned to was Petersen, the former Broncos head coach who went 92-12 from 2006 to 2013 and had two undefeated seasons. Having started his career at Azusa Pacific University in Southern California and joined Boise as a graduate assistant in 2017, Danielson knew he needed help and wanted to get it from the individual responsible for the program’s greatest years.
“I called him and was like, ‘Coach, I want your help. I want to make this something consistent,'” Danielson said. “I knew that when I became a head coach, this is how I want it to be.”
After reenergizing the team and leading it to its fourth Mountain West title last season, Danielson officially got the job, but he knew that the task at hand went beyond a single season. One of the Mountain West’s premier programs had lost some of its luster and failed to secure a major bowl victory since beating Oregon in 2017. Danielson wanted to build something that would last, and Petersen became the ideal sounding board.
“I don’t see my role as solving his problems. My role is helping him think about his problems, maybe even in a different way and asking him questions so he can get to the solutions.” Petersen said. “It works pretty good because he’s so wide open to really everything and getting the best answers for his team and his program.”
The thread between Petersen and Danielson is a reflection of what Dickey and those now leading the program knew it needed: a return to the kind of cohesion Petersen fostered that made Boise State great, with an eye toward what will position it to be even better in the future.
Danielson, who is now 15-2 as head coach, has continued the program’s winning tradition while taking the team beyond where it has been before. This season, the Broncos produced a Heisman Trophy finalist in running back Ashton Jeanty, won the Mountain West for a fifth time and earned a spot in the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff. They lost only once — to Oregon, the undefeated No. 1 team in the country — and grabbed an improbable first-round bye in the process.
“We were going to be prepared for that success when it happened,” Dickey said. “Now, there’s a momentum that’s contagious.”
But even though the Cinderella of the late aughts is ready to embrace the underdog role yet again against No. 3 Penn State in another Fiesta Bowl appearance Tuesday, the Broncos don’t want to be satisfied with just having a long-awaited seat at the table.
THERE IS SOMETHING in the Arizona air that seems to attract Boise blue.
Over the past 17 years, the Fiesta Bowl has become as much a part of the school’s lore as the bright blue field on which its football team practices and plays. It has been the site of some of the program’s greatest moments, a place where legends have been made and trick plays have been embossed in the sport’s history.
Despite hundreds of players and a handful of coaches cycling through Boise over the years, the destination in the desert keeps beckoning the Broncos back for more.
“There’s definitely some good energy there,” Jared Zabransky, Boise State’s quarterback during its 2006 season, said.
Even after all these years, it doesn’t take much to unearth the chip on Zabransky’s shoulder. He recalls how the rhetoric surrounding Boise State was that its undefeated season was a farce and a product of a weak schedule.
“No one gave us a shot in that game against Oklahoma,” Zabransky said of the 2007 Fiesta Bowl against the Sooners. “But we knew what we had.”
The Broncos shocked the world, taking down Big 12 champion Oklahoma despite being 7.5-point underdogs. Petersen and then-offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin called three crucial trick plays: a hook-and-ladder touchdown that tied the game in regulation, a direct snap touchdown thrown by a wide receiver in overtime and the famous “Statue of Liberty” play where Zabransky faked a pass and handed the ball to running back Ian Johnson behind his back for the winning two-point conversion.
“Every year, they start playing clips of that play,” Zabransky said. “If it’s not the most memorable game of all time, it’s definitely in the top three.”
Three years later, Boise State made it back to the Fiesta Bowl and beat No. 3 TCU by a touchdown. Five years later, it returned to the bowl game and did it again, taking down No. 12 Arizona by eight points.
As Zabransky watched the final College Football Playoff ranking come out a few weeks ago, he could only smile and accept a familiar fate. It was fitting that the inaugural 12-team playoff would not just include Boise State, but that it would send it, improbably, to yet another Fiesta Bowl as the underdog with a chance to do something the Broncos could not back in the BCS days: play for a national title.
“I never got hung up in the old days about not getting an opportunity. To me, the opportunity was could we get into BCS games,” Petersen said. “But now that the system’s changed a little bit, I think it’s great that they have struck when they’re hot. It’s tremendous.”
Zabransky knows what they did in 2007 helped showcase the foundation the program had built, centered around an identity of relentless work ethic and a quest for perfection that Petersen preached.
“It was a special time,” he said. “And I see some of that in this [year’s] squad. There’s a connection and a complete unity going in the right direction.”
Tonight, Zabransky will walk back into State Farm Stadium, this time as a fan. With Boise State set to wear the same uniform combination of white jerseys, orange pants and blue helmets it has in each Fiesta Bowl appearance, Zabransky will allow his mind to wander into the past, in hopes of trying to will the future to bend in favor of the Broncos again.
JERAMIAH DICKEY KNEW that Boise State had plateaued. It was 2021, and he had just taken the job as the Broncos’ athletic director. As he surveyed both what the Broncos had internally and the landscape of the sport beyond Idaho, Dickey knew he had to push the program forward.
The Petersen era was well in the rearview mirror. The game was changing with name, image and likeness. The Broncos’ last Fiesta Bowl win and appearance had been 10 years ago. And the sport’s most storied programs were shape-shifting via conference realignment.
“We set the bar really high with three Fiesta Bowls, and maybe the perception is we hadn’t done enough from the last Fiesta Bowl to present day,” Dickey said. “But Boise State is, in the grand scheme of things, in the infant stages of being a university and being an FBS program. So what I saw was opportunity.”
Dickey quickly identified what he referred to as “low-hanging fruit” and implemented a plan to address the issues and move the program forward. Boise had to pay its coaches and coordinators more, and it had to improve the fan experience, the stadium and the team’s facilities, too. It had to set up an infrastructure for large donations and create a vision that Broncos fans could buy in to, literally and figuratively.
“We were living too much in the past and not enough in the present and future,” Dickey said. “And this is an industry, as soon as you stop, you die a slow death. So we had to mature as a program and grow up really quickly.”
The former Baylor administrator quickly instituted a new mentality among his staff and turned it into the department’s mantra: “What’s next?” It’s also the name of the fundraising initiative Dickey started.
“The job that has been done by Jeremiah has been amazing,” Petersen said. “I think sometimes people don’t understand really how hard that is to do at a place like Boise, to be able to then compete on a national stage.”
For Dickey, this has been a year of reaping. Not only are the Broncos headed back to another Fiesta Bowl, but they are set to break ground Saturday on a north end zone renovation. They have added new video boards as well as a ticket sales team that has broken program revenue and attendance records. The capital campaign is ongoing with a $150 million goal for athletics, and in October, Boise State became part of the six programs that announced they would be moving to the new Pac-12 Conference in 2026.
“If I can make a decision that is going to drastically impact my resources and revenues that I can then invest back into the department, to me it was a no-brainer,” Dickey said of the move. “Now, time will tell and ultimately I’ll be judged off that, but I’m always going to bet on myself. I’m always going to bet on our team and I’m going to bet on our community.”
Since the move to the Pac-12 was announced, Dickey has seen the response materialize in sold-out season tickets for basketball and six sold-out football games this season. It helps, of course, that the Broncos are in the playoff, but Dickey is adamant that the results are secondary.
“A lot of the success you’re seeing in the present day started four years ago,” Dickey said. “It all started before we knew what this season would be. So whether the CFP changed or not, we were always looking forward to how to better position ourselves. And sometimes you get lucky.”
DANIELSON HAD 45 minutes to prepare his speech. He had just been named the Broncos’ interim coach and had to deliver a message to the team. He knew that Avalos’ firing meant players could enter the portal at will. He knew coaches on the staff were thinking about where they’d end up once a new coach was hired.
So, he simply asked for two weeks.
“At that point, everything is telling you to look out for yourself,” Danielson said. “So I told them, I don’t know what’s after these two weeks. I don’t know what my future looks like, your future, but I do know we got a great group of seniors that have been through a lot: COVID, multiple head coaches, tough seasons. We owe it to each other, and we owe it to our team to finish these next two weeks.”
With the football team staring at its first losing season since 1997 (a year after the program moved up to Division I), former players such as Zabransky could tell, even from the outside, that something was wrong.
“I love Andy, but when you get to a place where things just aren’t working and you press and press again, there has to be a change,” Zabransky said.
Dickey took the temperature of the situation and made what he believed was a necessary move, firing Avalos and installing Danielson as interim coach. In retrospect, Dickey’s move now looks like a stroke of genius, but even he admits that he didn’t go into the process expecting to make Danielson the permanent head coach.
But players and coaches bought into Danielson’s message, won their remaining two games and turned what was a slim chance into another conference title. Over the course of those two weeks, Dickey saw how Danielson’s approach had, even in such short order, reinjected Boise with the kind of energy the program had been missing.
“The guy just didn’t have bad days,” Dickey said of Danielson. “I just saw [him] embrace the challenge and show up differently than I had seen a coach show up, and I saw a team respond at a level I had not seen.”
Initially, Petersen delivered a blunt message to Danielson: “You’re not going to get the job.” But Petersen noticed that instead of focusing on securing the position, Danielson turned the focus toward the players. Once he secured the job, Danielson, with Petersen’s help, knew he wanted his approach to be unique. He knew Boise State’s competitive advantage couldn’t be found inside a playbook or a checkbook.
“We’ve got to be different, we’ve got to be efficient and specific,” Danielson said. “Maybe we can’t pay this or that. Let’s capitalize on what we do better than anybody else, which is development, which is taking care of our players. We’re involved in every part of our players’ lives.”
In some ways, it’s hard to view this season as a proof of concept. The Broncos had a once-in-a-lifetime player in Jeanty who had a once-in-a-lifetime season. But Dickey and Danielson are focused on ensuring that Boise is able to not just recruit and develop the next Jeanty, but that it’s able to keep him. Danielson isn’t naive; he wants players who want to be at Boise State, or as Petersen used to call them, “OKGs — our kind of guys.” but he knows the right infrastructure has to be in place, too.
“Jeramiah asks me, ‘What do you need to be one of the best teams in the country consistently and not just a flash in the pan? How do we do this consistently?'” Danielson said. “And that’s funding. There is support here. This is one of the top growing cities in the country. There is money here bringing it in to support our players, not only financially, but in all facets of their life as college football becomes even more professionalized.”
Over the past 12 months, Danielson’s message to his staff has been a consistent one that has bore out in the 12 wins the team has compiled this season.
“We have more than enough to succeed here,” Danielson tells them. “We have enough at Boise State.”
On Dec. 6, Boise’s blue field was swarmed by a tsunami of fans wearing blue. The chants of “Heisman” for Jeanty filled the stadium. A portion of the goal posts even ended up in the nearby Boise River.
As the clock hit zero and the program won its second straight Mountain West Championship over UNLV, punching its ticket to the College Football Playoff, a smiling Petersen, wearing a Broncos hat, stood on the field and soaked it all in. He doesn’t get to many college football games these days, working as an in-studio analyst for Fox Sports, and he doesn’t remember the last time he was in Boise for a game on “the blue” either.
“In some ways it felt like, boy, that was a long time ago that I was there, but on the other hand, it felt like it was just yesterday,” Petersen said. “Just being in that stadium with those awesome fans … that place is underrated.”
Few know that sentiment better than Dirk Koetter. The current offensive coordinator for the Broncos left Oregon in 1998 to become Boise’s head coach before Petersen. It was the beginning of what would be the program’s golden era, but Koetter remembers how he felt one particular day during that year as he stood inside a room at the local hotel and watched snow blanket the city while handling an off-the-field situation in which one of his players stole books from a bookstore.
“I was thinking to myself, why did I leave Eugene, Oregon, to come to this?” Koetter said. “That press box wasn’t there. This theater wasn’t here. That indoor [field] wasn’t there. Boise State was probably averaging about 19,000 fans a game.”
Koetter kept at it. The next season, the Broncos went 9-3, won their conference title and beat Louisville in their bowl game. They went on to win four bowl games in a row and lose no more than three times in a season through the 2004 season under Dan Hawkins (53-11), a year before Petersen became the head coach and took the team to another level. When Petersen left for Washington, his offensive coordinator, Bryan Harsin, ensured the winning continued, going 69-19 over the next seven seasons.
“I’m very proud of where this program has gone and how we’ve been able to keep the chain of coaches and of the culture in this program,” Koetter said. “To be in this playoff, I think it speaks volumes about the administration here, the fans here, the players here and the coaches here.”
Koetter has come full circle by ushering this season’s offense to success. After 42 years of coaching at the college level and in the NFL, this might be Koetter’s last run. At his pre-Fiesta Bowl news conference last week, Koetter acknowledged that it could be his last news conference ever.
“I hope it’s not,” Koetter said. “I hope we keep playing.”
Boise State’s season isn’t over; another Fiesta Bowl where the odds (Penn State is favored by 10.5 points on ESPN BET) are against its favor awaits. And as Koetter and every other coach and player who has worn the Boise blue since the turn of the century knows, it would be foolish to count the Broncos out in the desert.
Hard-throwing rookie Jacob Misiorowski is a National League All-Star replacement, giving the Milwaukee Brewers right-hander a chance to break Paul Skenes‘ record for the fewest big league appearances before playing in the Midsummer Classic.
Misiorowski was named Friday night to replace Chicago Cubs lefty Matthew Boyd, who will be unavailable for the All-Star Game on Tuesday night in Atlanta because he is scheduled to start Saturday at the New York Yankees.
The 23-year-old Misiorowski has made just five starts for the Brewers, going 4-1 with a 2.81 ERA while averaging 99.3 mph on his fastball, with 89 pitches that have reached 100 mph.
If he pitches at Truist Park, Misiorowski will make it consecutive years for a player to set the mark for fewest big league games before an All-Star showing.
Skenes, the Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander getting ready for his second All-Star appearance, had made 11 starts in the majors when he was chosen as the NL starter for last year’s All-Star Game at Texas. He pitched a scoreless inning.
“I’m speechless,” said a teary-eyed Misiorowski, who said he was given the news a few minutes before the Brewers’ 8-3 victory over Washington. “It’s awesome. It’s very unexpected and it’s an honor.”
Misiorowski is the 30th first-time All-Star and 16th replacement this year. There are now 80 total All-Stars.
“He’s impressive. He’s got some of the best stuff in the game right now, even though he’s a young pitcher,” said Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, who is a starting AL outfielder for his seventh All-Star nod. “He’s going to be a special pitcher in this game for a long time so I think he deserved it and it’s going be pretty cool for him and his family.”
Carlos Rodón, Carlos Estévez and Casey Mize were named replacement pitchers on the AL roster.
The New York Yankees‘ Rodón, an All-Star for the third time in five seasons, will replace teammate Max Fried for Tuesday’s game in Atlanta. Fried will be unavailable because he is scheduled to start Saturday against the Chicago Cubs.
In his final start before the All-Star game, Rodón allowed four hits and struck out eight in eight innings in an 11-0 victory over the Cubs.
“This one’s a little special for me,” said Rodón, an All-Star in 2021 and ’22 who was 3-8 in his first season with the Yankees two years ago before rebounding. “I wasn’t good when I first got here, and I just wanted to prove that I wasn’t to going to give up and just put my best foot forward and try to win as many games as I can.”
The Kansas City Royals‘ Estévez replaces Texas’ Jacob deGrom, who is scheduled to start at Houston on Saturday night. Estévez was a 2023 All-Star when he was with the Los Angeles Angels.
Mize takes the spot held by Boston‘s Garrett Crochet, who is scheduled to start Saturday against Tampa Bay. Mize gives the Tigers six All-Stars, most of any team and tied for the franchise record.
Royals third baseman Maikel Garcia will replace Tampa Bay‘s Brandon Lowe, who went on the injured list with left oblique tightness. The additions of Estévez and Garcia give the Royals four All-Stars, matching their 2024 total.
The Seattle Mariners announced center fielder Julio Rodríguez will not participate, and he was replaced by teammate Randy Arozarena. Rodríguez had been voted onto the AL roster via the players’ ballot. The Mariners, who have five All-Stars, said Rodríguez will use the break to “recuperate, rest and prepare for the second half.”
Arozarena is an All-Star for the second time. He started in left field for the AL two years ago, when he was with Tampa Bay. Arozarena was the runner-up to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the 2023 Home Run Derby.
Rays right-hander Drew Rasmussen, a first-time All-Star, is replacing Angels left-hander Yusei Kikuchi, who is scheduled to start Saturday night at Arizona. Rasmussen is 7-5 with a 2.82 ERA in 18 starts.
San Diego added a third NL All-Star reliever in lefty Adrián Morejón, who replaces Philadelphia starter Zack Wheeler. The Phillies’ right-hander is scheduled to start at San Diego on Saturday night. Morejón entered the weekend with a 1.71 ERA in 45 appearances.
DETROIT — Cal Raleigh hit his 37th and 38th home runs in Seattle‘s 12-3 victory over Detroit on Friday night to move within one of Barry Bonds’ 2001 major league record for homers before the All-Star break.
Raleigh hit a solo homer off former teammate Tyler Holton in the eighth to tie the American League record of 37 before the All-Star break set by Reggie Jackson in 1969 and matched by Chris Davis in 2013.
“[Holton] and I are really good friends, and I’ve caught a lot of his pitches,” said Raleigh, who was in the lineup as the designated hitter instead of at catcher. “I don’t think that helped much, but I’m sure he’s not very happy with me.”
Raleigh hit a grand slam off Brant Hurter in the ninth.
“I didn’t even know it was a record until just now,” Raleigh said. “I don’t have words for it, I guess. I’m just very grateful and thankful.”
It was Raleigh’s eighth multihomer game this season, tying Jackson (also in 1969) for the most such games before the All-Star break in MLB history, according to ESPN Research. He also tied Ken Griffey Jr. for the most multihomer games in Mariners franchise history.
Seattle has two games left in Detroit before the break.
“Cal Raleigh … this is just unbelievable,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “He’s already set the AL record and now he’s only one short of Barry. There are two games, so who knows?”
Raleigh hit 10 homers in March and April, 12 in May, 11 in June and has five in July.
“This is a very boring comment, but baseball is all about consistency,” Wilson said. “This hasn’t been one hot streak, he’s doing this month after month. That says everything.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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David Schoenfield
We’re past due to hand out some midseason grades, so let’s hand out some midseason grades.
As we pass the 90-game mark in the 2025 MLB season, my team of the first half isn’t the well-rounded Detroit Tigers, who do get our highest grade for owning MLB’s best record, or the explosive Chicago Cubs or Shohei Ohtani‘s Los Angeles Dodgers, but a team most baseball fans love to hate: the Houston Astros. They lost their two best players from last season and their best hitter has been injured — and they’re playing their best baseball since they won the 2022 World Series.
Let’s get to the grades. As always, we’re grading off preseason expectations, factoring in win-loss record and quality of performance, while looking at other positive performances and injuries.
Jump to a team:
AL East: BAL | BOS | NYY | TB | TOR
AL Central: CHW | CLE | DET | KC | MIN
AL West: ATH | HOU | LAA | SEA | TEX
NL East: ATL | MIA | NYM | PHI | WSH
NL Central: CHC | CIN | MIL | PIT | STL
NL West: ARI | COL | LAD | SD | SF
Tarik Skubal is obviously the headline act, but the Tigers are winning with impressive depth across the entire roster.
Javier Baez is putting together a remarkable comeback season after a couple of abysmal years and will become the first player to start an All-Star Game at both shortstop and in the outfield. Former No. 1 overall picks Casey Mize and Spencer Torkelson have put together their own comeback stories, while Riley Greene has matured into one of the game’s top power hitters.
Given their deep well of prospects and contributors at the MLB level, no team is better positioned than the Tigers to add significant help at the trade deadline.
I heard someone refer to them as the Zombie Astros, which feels apropos. Alex Bregman left as a free agent, they traded Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez has been injured and has just three home runs, and the Jose Altuve experiment in left field predictably fizzled.
But here they are, fighting for the best record in the majors and holding a comfortable lead in the AL West. They’re getting star turns from Hunter Brown, Framber Valdez and Jeremy Pena, while the risky decision to start Cam Smith in the majors with very little minor league experience has paid off, as he has now become their cleanup hitter.
If we ignore the COVID-19 season, the Astros look on their way to an eighth straight division title.
This could be at least a half-grade higher based on everything that has gone right: Pete Crow-Armstrong‘s attention-grabbing breakout, Tucker doing everything expected after the big trade, Seiya Suzuki‘s monster power numbers and Matthew Boyd‘s All-Star turn in the rotation. The Cubs are on pace for their most wins since their World Series title season in 2016.
There have been a few hiccups, however, especially in the rotation with Justin Steele‘s season-ending injury and Ben Brown‘s inconsistency, plus rookie third baseman Matt Shaw has scuffled, and the bench has been weak aside from their backup catchers.
Still, this is a powerhouse lineup, and the Cubs will seek to improve their rotation at the deadline.
They just keep winning of late, going from 25-27 and seven games behind the Yankees on May 25 to taking over first place from the slumping Bronx Bombers, a remarkable turnaround over just 36 games. They went 27-9 over a 36-game stretch ending with their eighth win in a row on Sunday.
George Springer‘s recent surge has been fun to watch, a reminder of how good he was at his peak, and Addison Barger has been mashing over the past two months.
Some of the stats don’t add up to the Blue Jays being this good — they’ve barely outscored their opponents — but there might be more offense in the tank from the likes of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and a healthy Anthony Santander, and the bullpen, a soft spot, is the easiest area to upgrade.
Their success is best summed up by the fact that Freddy Peralta is their lone All-Star, but they have a whole bunch of players who have contributed between 1 and 2 WAR.
Brandon Woodruff looked good Sunday in his first start in nearly two years, so that could be a huge boost for the second half.
I’m curious to see how Jackson Chourio performs as well. While his counting stats — extra-base hits, RBIs — are fine, his triple-slash line remains below last season, especially his OBP. He had a huge second half in 2024 (.310/.363/.552), and if he does that again, the Brewers could find themselves back in the postseason for the seventh time in eight seasons.
The Rays started off slow, with a losing record through the end of April, but then went 33-22 in May and June to claw back into the AL East race — as the Rays usually do, last year being the recent exception.
Two key performers have been All-Star third baseman Junior Caminero, who has a chance to become just the third player to hit 40 home runs in his age-21 season, and All-Star first baseman Jonathan Aranda.
Due to the league wanting the Rays to play more home games early in the season, the July and August slate will be very road-heavy, so we’ll see how the Rays adapt to a difficult two-month stretch, especially since their pitching isn’t quite as deep as it has been in other seasons.
No, they’re not going to be the greatest team of all time. But they might win 100 games — even though Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki, their huge offseason acquisitions, have combined for just two wins in 10 starts.
The lineup, of course, has been terrific, with Ohtani leading the NL in several categories and Will Smith leading the batting race. By wRC+, it’s been the best offense in Dodgers history.
If they can get some combo of Snell, Sasaki and Tyler Glasnow healthy, plus Ohtani eventually ramped up to a bigger workload on the mound, the Dodgers still loom as World Series favorites.
They are on pace for 95 wins, mainly on the strength of Zack Wheeler, Ranger Suarez and Cristopher Sanchez, who are a combined 23-7 with 11.8 WAR. Jesus Luzardo‘s ERA is bloated due to that two-start stretch when he allowed 20 runs, but he has otherwise been solid as well.
But, overall, it hasn’t always been the smoothest of treks. The bullpen has imploded a few times and the offense has lacked power aside from Kyle Schwarber. Bryce Harper is back after missing three weeks, and they need to get his bat going. Look for some bullpen additions at the trade deadline — and perhaps an outfielder as well.
The Cardinals have been a minor surprise — perhaps even to the Cardinals themselves. St. Louis was viewing this as a rebuilding year of sorts — not that the Cardinals ever hit rock bottom and start completely over. They had a hot May, winning 12 of 13 at one point, but the offense has been fading of late, with those three straight shutout losses to Pittsburgh and six shutout losses since June 25.
The starting rotation doesn’t generate a lot of swing and miss, with both Erick Fedde and Miles Mikolas seeing their ERAs starting to climb. Brendan Donovan is the team’s only All-Star rep, and that kind of sums up this team: solid but without any star power. That might foretell a second-half fade.
All-Star starting pitchers Logan Webb and Robbie Ray, plus a dominant bullpen, have led the way, although after starting 12-4, the Giants have basically been a .500 team for close to three months now. Rafael Devers hasn’t yet ignited the offense since coming over from Boston, and the Giants have lost four 1-0 games.
These final three games at home against the Dodgers before the All-Star break will be a crucial series, as Los Angeles has slowly pulled away in the NL West.
This was an “A-plus” through June 12, when the Mets were 45-24 and owned the best record in baseball, even though Juan Soto hadn’t gotten hot. Soto finally got going in June, but the pitching collapsed, and the Mets went through a disastrous 1-10 stretch.
The rotation injuries have piled up, exacerbating the lack of bullpen depth. Recent games have been started by Justin Hagenman (who had a 6.21 ERA in Triple-A), journeyman reliever Chris Devenski, Paul Blackburn (7.71 ERA) and Frankie Montas, who has had to start even though he’s clearly not throwing the ball well. The Mets need to get the rotation healthy, but also could use more offense from Mark Vientos and their catchers (Francisco Alvarez was demoted to Triple-A).
At times it has felt like Cal Raleigh has been a one-man team with his record-breaking first half. But he will be joined on the All-Star squad by starting pitcher Bryan Woo, closer Andres Munoz and center fielder Julio Rodriguez, who made it on the strength of his defense, as his offense has been a disappointment.
The offense has been one of the best in the majors on the road, but the rotation has been nowhere near as effective as the past couple of seasons, with George Kirby, Logan Gilbert and Bryce Miller all missing time with injuries. They just shut out the Pirates three games in a row, so maybe that will get the rotation on a roll.
They’re just out of the wild-card picture while hanging around .500, so we give them a decent grade since that exceeds preseason expectations. It feels like a little bit of a mirage given their run differential — their record in one-run games (good) versus their record in blowout games (not good) — and various holes across the lineup and pitching staff.
But they’ve done two things to keep them in the race. One, they hit a lot of home runs. Two, they’re the only team in the majors to use just five starting pitchers. The rotation hasn’t been stellar, but it’s been stable.
The Padres are probably fortunate to be where they are, given some of their issues. As expected, the offensive depth has been a problem.
Not as expected, Dylan Cease has struggled while Michael King‘s injury after a strong start has left them without last year’s dynamic 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation (although Nick Pivetta has been one of the best signings of the offseason). Yu Darvish just made his season debut Monday, so hopefully he’ll provide a lift.
The Padres haven’t played well against the better teams, including a 2-5 record against the Dodgers, but they did clean up against the Athletics, Rockies and Pirates, going 16-2 against those three teams.
For now, the Reds are stuck in neutral. Leave out 2022, when they lost 100 games, and it’s otherwise been a string of .500-ish seasons: 31-29 in 2020, 83-79 in 2021, 82-80 in 2023, 77-85 in 2024 and now a similar record so far in 2025.
The hope was that Terry Francona would be a difference-maker. Maybe that will play out down the stretch, but the best hope is to get the rotation clicking on all cylinders at the same time. That means Andrew Abbott continuing his breakout performance, plus getting Hunter Greene healthy again and rookie Chase Burns to live up to the hype after a couple of shaky outings following an impressive MLB debut.
Throw in Nick Lodolo and solid Nick Martinez and Brady Singer, and this group can be good enough to pitch the Reds to their first full-season playoff appearance since 2013.
The Yankees have hit their annual midseason swoon — which has been subject to much intense analysis from their disgruntled fans — and that opening weekend sweep of the Brewers, when the Yankees’ torpedo bats were the big story in baseball, now seems long ago.
Going from seven up to three back in such a short time is a disaster — but not disastrous. Nonetheless, the Yankees will have to do some hard-core self-evaluation heading to the trade deadline.
The offense wasn’t going to be as good as it was in April, when Paul Goldschmidt, Trent Grisham and Ben Rice were all playing over their heads. So, do they need a hitter? Or with Clarke Schmidt now likely joining Gerrit Cole as a Tommy John casualty, do they need a starting pitcher? Or both?
From the book of “things we didn’t expect,” page 547: The Marlins are averaging more runs per game than the Orioles, Padres, Braves and Rangers, to name a few teams. They’re averaging almost as many runs per game as the Mets, and last time we checked, the Marlins weren’t the team to give Soto $765 million.
An eight-game winning streak at the end of June has the Marlins going toe-to-toe with the Braves for third place in the NL East even though the starting rotation has been a mess, with Sandy Alcantara on track to become just the fourth qualified pitcher with an ERA over 7.00.
Heading into the season, I thought that if any team was going to challenge the Dodgers in the NL West, it would be the Diamondbacks. The offense has once again been one of the best in the majors, but the pitching issues have been painful.
After the aggressive move to sign Corbin Burnes, he went down with Tommy John surgery after 11 starts. Meanwhile, Zac Gallen, Eduardo Rodriguez and Brandon Pfaadt each have an ERA on the wrong side of 5.00. Rodriguez was better in June before a shellacking on July 4, while Gallen remains homer-prone, so it’s hard to tell if improvement is on the horizon. Their playoff odds are hovering just under 20%, so there’s a chance, but they need to get red-hot like they did last July and August.
It feels like it has been more soap opera than baseball season in Boston, with the Devers drama finally ending with the shocking trade with the Giants.
If you give added weight that this is the Red Sox, a team that should be operating with the big boys in both budget and aspirations and instead seemed to only want to dump Devers’ contract, then feel free to lower this grade a couple of notches, even if the Red Sox are close in the wild-card standings.
On the field, the heralded rookie trio of Kristian Campbell, Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer hasn’t exactly clicked, with Campbell returning to the minors after posting a .902 OPS in April. A big test will come out of the All-Star break, when they play the Cubs, Phillies, Dodgers, Twins and Astros in a tough 15-game stretch.
After last season’s surprise playoff appearance, it’s been a frustrating 2025 — although I’m not sure this result is necessarily a surprise.
There were concerns about the offense heading into the season and those concerns have proven correct. They were getting no production from their outfield, so they rushed Jac Caglianone to the majors to much hype, but he has struggled and might need a reset back in Triple-A. Even Bobby Witt Jr., as good as he has been (on pace for 7.5 WAR), has seen his OPS drop 140 points.
On the bright side, Kris Bubic emerged as an All-Star starter and Noah Cameron has filled in nicely for the injured Cole Ragans, so maybe they trade a starter for some offense.
Coming off a catastrophic 2024 season, nobody was expecting anything from the White Sox. Indeed, another 121-loss season loomed as a possibility. While they’re on pace to lose 100 again, they’ve at least played more competitive baseball thanks to their pitching.
Rookie starters Shane Smith and Sean Burke have shown promise, while rookie position players Kyle Teel, Edgar Quero and now Colson Montgomery are getting their initial taste of the majors.
There has been the mix of calamity: Luis Robert Jr. has been unproductive and is probably now untradable, and former No. 3 overall pick Andrew Vaughn hit .189 and was traded to the Brewers.
The Twins are one organization that might like a do-over of the past five seasons. It feels like they’ve had the most talent in the division, but all they’ve done is squeeze out one soft division title in 2023. Now, the Tigers have passed them in talent and other factors, such as payroll flexibility.
There’s still time for the Twins to turn things around in 2025, but outside of that wonderful 13-game winning streak, they haven’t played winning baseball.
Overall, it’s been yet another bad season, despite Paul Skenes‘ brilliance. Really, do we talk enough about him? Yes, we do talk about him, but he has a 1.95 ERA through his first 42 career starts. Incredible.
Here’s an amazing thing about baseball. The Pirates are not a good team, but they recently put together one of the best six-game stretches in history. That’s not stretching the description. First, they swept the Mets — a good team — by scores of 9-1, 9-2 and 12-1. Then they swept the Cardinals — a good team — with three shutouts, 7-0, 1-0 and 5-0. They became the first team since at least 1901 to score 43 runs or more and allow four runs or fewer in a six-game stretch. And then they promptly got shut out three games in a row, making them the first to win three straight shutouts and then lose three straight shutouts.
Eighteen of our 28 voters picked them to win the AL West before the season, but it’s looking more and more like the 2023 World Series might be a stone-cold fluke in the middle of a string of losing seasons. That year, nearly everyone in the lineup had a career year at the plate, and the pitching got hot at the right time.
This year’s Rangers, though, have struggled to score runs, and while some have pointed to the offensive environment at Globe Life Field, they’re near the bottom in road OPS as well. It’s been fun seeing Jacob deGrom back at a dominating level, and Nathan Eovaldi should have been an All-Star.
Put it this way: If the Rangers can somehow squeeze into the postseason, you don’t want to face the Rangers in a short series. Indeed, if any team looms as an October upset special, it might be the Rangers.
The Nationals received superlative first-half performances from James Wood and MacKenzie Gore, while CJ Abrams is on the way to his best season. But there remains a lack of overall organizational progress, which finally led to the firings on Sunday of longtime GM Mike Rizzo and longtime manager Dave Martinez. A 7-19 record in June sealed their fate, as the rotation has been bad and the bullpen arguably the worst in baseball.
Until the Nationals figure out how to improve their pitching — or, better yet, find an owner who wants to win — they will be stuck going nowhere.
That fell apart in a hurry. Sunday’s loss was Cleveland’s 10th in a row, a stretch that remarkably included five shutouts. Indeed, the Guardians have now been shut out 11 times; the franchise record in the post-dead-ball-era (since 1920) is 20 shutouts in 1968.
There’s nothing worse than watching a team that can’t score runs, so that tells you how exciting the Guardians have been. Last year, the Guardians hit exceptionally well with runners in scoring position, keeping afloat what was otherwise a mediocre offense. That hasn’t happened in 2025 (trading Josh Naylor didn’t help either). Throw in some predictable regression from the bullpen, and this season looks lost.
We can’t give this a complete failing grade due to the emergence of All-Star shortstop Jacob Wilson (the Athletics’ first All-Star starter since Josh Donaldson in 2014) and slugging first baseman Nick Kurtz, who have a chance to finish 1-2 in the Rookie of the Year voting. Plus, we have Denzel Clarke‘s circus catches in center field.
But otherwise? Ugh. The Sacramento gamble already looks like a disaster, three months into a three-year stay. The team is drawing well below Sutter Health Park’s 14,000-seat capacity, with many recent games drawing under 10,000 fans. Luis Severino bashed the small crowds and the lack of air-conditioning.
The A’s had a groundbreaking ceremony for their new park in Vegas, renting heavy construction equipment as background props. Maybe they should have spent that money on more pitching help.
Based on preseason expectations, the Braves have clearly been the biggest disappointment in the National League — fighting the Orioles for most disappointing overall.
What’s gone wrong? They haven’t scored runs, as the offense continues its remarkable fade from a record-setting performance just two seasons ago. The collapses of Michael Harris II and Ozzie Albies lead the way, with lack of production at shortstop and left field playing a big role as well. Closer Raisel Iglesias has struggled, and the team is 11-22 in one-run games. Spencer Strider hasn’t yet reached his pre-injury level and Reynaldo Lopez made just one start before going down.
The Braves haven’t missed the playoffs since 2017, but that run is clearly in jeopardy.
The Orioles have a similar record to the Braves but have played much worse, including losses of 24-2, 19-5, 15-3 and two separate 9-0 shutouts.
They will spend the trade deadline dealing away as many of their impending free agents as possible, and then do a lot of soul-searching heading into the offseason. After making the playoffs in 2023 and 2024, will this season just be a blip? While the pitching struggles aren’t necessarily a big surprise, what has happened to the offense? Are some of their young players prospects or suspects?
After two months of Cleveland Spiders-level baseball, it would be easy to make fun of the Rockies. Especially since they recently announced Walker Monfort — son of the owner — was promoted to executive VP and will replace outgoing president and COO Greg Feasel.
On the other hand, the Rockies are doing something right: They just drew 121,000 for a three-game series against the White Sox.
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