Five early-season MLB surprises — and why they’re happening
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Alden Gonzalez
We’re six weeks into the 2025 MLB season, long enough to gather some meaningful intel but short enough to wonder how much of it actually matters.
Pete Alonso has gone from unwanted free agent to MVP front-runner, only one team in the typically mighty American League East boasts a winning record, and some of the game’s best closers — Devin Williams, Alexis Díaz, Ryan Pressly and Emmanuel Clase, in particular — are suddenly not.
Those are just a few of the notable surprises through the first 23% or so of this season. Below are five others, and the reasons behind them.
Spencer Torkelson is suddenly hitting like a No. 1 pick
Spencer Torkelson was the Detroit Tigers’ No. 1 draft pick out of Arizona State University in 2020, billed as a can’t-miss bat. The 2024 season was supposed to be the stage for his breakout. Instead, he found himself back in the minor leagues.
Tigers manager A.J. Hinch texted Torkelson almost daily after the team sent him down to Triple-A in June. At one point, the two even met up for breakfast. Hinch wanted to assure Torkelson that the Tigers were thinking about him and still valued him. But what Torkelson might have needed most, some of those around him believe, was to see the team succeed without him. He needed the urgency to change.
“Coming out of college, I felt like I had it figured out, was the greatest hitter ever,” Torkelson said. “And I got humbled.”
Torkelson struggled so profoundly last year — a .669 OPS, 10 homers and 105 strikeouts in 92 games — that he entered 2025 without a clear path for playing time. Now, early in his age-25 season, he looks like the feared hitter so many expected to see. Through 36 games, Torkelson has already equaled last year’s home run total. He’s drawing walks at a significantly higher rate, OPS’ing .879 and ranking within the top 5% in expected slugging percentage — a stat in which he finished 211th among 252 hitters last year.
Torkelson entered this season with a 361-game sample of inconsistency, but scouts don’t see his sudden success as an early-season fluke — they see it as the result of an elite hitter making consequential adjustments.
Torkelson is more athletic and in rhythm in his stance this year, whereas previously he looked “statuesque,” in the words of one Tigers source. He has more bend in his knees, plants his feet closer together and has implemented a slight crouch. But it’s not really a change. It’s how he hit right up until the time he reached the majors.
“You watch any swing in my entire life,” Torkelson said, “I kinda look exactly the way I look right now.”
The taller stance Torkelson fell into at the big league level was what he described as “a Band-Aid.” The high fastball gave him trouble early on, so Torkelson did what felt obvious: make that high fastball seem less high.
“And it worked,” Torkelson said. “I got away with it. I hit 31 homers and I didn’t even feel that great.”
But those 31 home runs, accumulated in his second year in 2023, masked other deficiencies that showed up the following summer. Torkelson slashed just .205/.271/.337 through the end of May in 2024. Shortly after, he was sent back to Triple-A for what became an 11-week stint. He returned in mid-August, produced a more respectable .781 OPS over his last 38 regular-season games, then went into the offseason vowing to hit the way he used to. He took a lesson from studying one of his favorite hitters, Mike Trout, who has built a Hall of Fame career despite struggling against the high fastball.
“We don’t get paid to hammer the high fastball,” Torkelson said. “We get paid to hammer the mistakes.”
The Tigers signed veteran second baseman Gleyber Torres to a one-year, $15 million deal in late December, then announced Colt Keith would move to first base. Torkelson came into spring training having to fight just to get at-bats at designated hitter.
Then everything changed. Torkelson hit his way into a starting role at first base in 31 of the Tigers’ 36 games. His production — along with that of Javier Baez, who has produced an .827 OPS while transitioning to center field — has given the Tigers some much-needed right-handed power and helped them climb to the top of the AL Central.
“I’m seeing the ball better, and I feel dangerous at the plate,” Torkelson said. “As a hitter, that’s all you can ask for. You’re not going to hit 1.000. But when you’re feeling dangerous and you’re seeing the ball well, you feel like you can’t be beat. You’re going to get beat, but it gives you the best shot.”
The Angels’ lineup is trending toward the worst type of history
Last year, the lowly offenses of the Colorado Rockies and Chicago White Sox posted two of the 12 worst walk-to-strikeout ratios in major league history. Now the Los Angeles Angels, who entered 2025 with hopes of finally being competitive again, are making an early run at the all-time mark.
The Angels’ offense has accumulated 81 walks through its first 35 games this season, the lowest total in the majors. Their hitters have struck out 338 times (third most). Before tying their season high with six walks in a walk-off win on Wednesday night, their 0.23 walk-to-strikeout rate was on pace to be the worst in baseball history. It has since improved to a mere 0.24, tied with the 2019 White Sox for the lowest ever.
It’s probably not surprising to learn that the full-season bottom 10 in that category has taken place over the past dozen years, at a time when hitters strike out more often than ever. It’s probably also not surprising to learn that seven of those 10 teams lost at least 100 games.
The Angels’ offense has been that bad. Since putting up 11 runs at the spring training facility where the Tampa Bay Rays play on April 10, they rank 29th in batting average, 27th in slugging percentage, and last in each of the following categories: on-base percentage, strikeout rate, walk rate and runs per game.
And though there’s still plenty of time to turn this around, it’s hard to envision how that historically low walk-to-strikeout rate — an important barometer of success on both sides — significantly improves. (Their pitching strikeout-to-walk rate, ranked 27th at 1.90, isn’t much better.)
On Tuesday, the Angels were happy to welcome back Yoan Moncada, who is capable of drawing walks but also strikes out at an exceedingly high rate. A return from Mike Trout, whose latest knee injury is not considered serious, would certainly help, though he reached base at only a .264 clip during his first 29 games. Taylor Ward, meanwhile, is much better than a .180/.225/.376 hitter.
But then there’s Jo Adell, whose career .639 OPS ranks 100th among the 114 players in Angels history with at least 1,000 plate appearances. And Logan O’Hoppe, who had the fifth-highest strikeout rate in the majors last year. And Jorge Soler, a prodigious power hitter who naturally carries a lot of swing-and-miss. And, notably, Kyren Paris, who looked like a breakout star early on but lately looks overmatched; since a two-hit game put his OPS at 1.514 on April 11, Paris has eight hits, three walks and 32 strikeouts in 66 plate appearances.
The Angels’ coaches have been trying to emphasize a two-strike approach with their hitters, but there’s only so much they can do.
“When you’ve got guys that’s capable of hitting the ball out the ballpark, it’s hard to tell them to cut their swing down because they don’t know what that is,” Angels manager Ron Washington said. “And when you’ve got guys in the lineup that don’t have a lot of experience and you say, ‘Cut the swing down,’ they don’t know what that is. There’s a lot of baseball to be gathered around here, man.”
Washington paused for a moment and smiled. Before being hired by the Angels in November 2023, Washington spent seven years as the third-base coach and infield instructor on Atlanta Braves teams brimming with veteran, championship-caliber players. This Angels team is not that. It’s young and inexperienced, and Washington has to remind himself of that constantly.
He is a teacher at heart, and often that requires patience. His is being tested like never before.
The Brewers’ injury-riddled rotation has somehow found a way
Three Milwaukee Brewers starting pitchers — DL Hall, Tobias Myers and Aaron Ashby — landed on the injured list with soft-tissue injuries during spring training. Two more, Aaron Civale and Nestor Cortes, went on the shelf within the regular season’s first week. By that point, the list of starting pitchers on the IL stretched to seven. And yet, in the most Brewers way possible, their rotation followed with a miraculous run.
From April 6-22, the foursome of Freddy Peralta, Chad Patrick, Jose Quintana and Quinn Priester combined for a 1.55 ERA over 63⅔ innings. The Brewers began the season by allowing 47 runs in 33 innings, but since then, their starting rotation boasts the fifth-lowest ERA in the majors at 3.08.
Peralta is a bona fide top-of-the-rotation starter, but Quintana is a 36-year-old who signed for a mere $4 million in March; Priester is a failed first-round pick acquired in a minor trade early last month; and Patrick is a 26-year-old rookie who wasn’t on anybody’s radar when the season began.
But the Brewers have built a reputation for employing pitchers who overachieve. Because they can’t afford the high-ceiling arms who cost a fortune in free agency, they hammer their depth to raise their floor as much as possible. And to do so, they apply a simple concept: develop and acquire pitchers who fit their environment. More specifically, pitchers who benefit most from a strong infield defense.
Quintana, who can throw his sinker with more conviction with better defense behind him, posted a 1.14 ERA in his first four starts before allowing six runs to the Chicago Cubs on Saturday. Patrick, who boasts an elite cutter with two different shapes, has a 3.08 ERA in his first seven turns through the rotation. Priester, the 18th pick in 2019, had a 6.23 ERA in 99⅔ major league innings heading into 2025. But the Brewers were intrigued by a minor league track record in which he had roughly average strikeout and walk rates and kept more than half the batted balls against him on the ground. Priester maintained a 1.93 ERA through his first three starts before allowing 12 runs over his next 9⅓ innings.
That rough patch aside, Priester helped stabilize a Brewers rotation that was in dire straits when the season began. A key reinforcement could come by the end of this week, when Brandon Woodruff makes his long-awaited return from shoulder surgery. Woodruff has been fully healthy, pitching without restrictions, but his velocity has been down, his fastball sitting in the 92- to 94-mph range as opposed to the upper-90s heat he featured while pitching like an ace. When Woodruff returns, he might have to pitch differently.
The Brewers will probably figure it out.
The next hitting star on the Rays is actually … Jonathan Aranda?
The Tampa Bay Rays exceeded their international bonus pool in 2014, restricting them to signing players for no more than $300,000 over the next two years. And yet, leading up to the 2015 signing period, assistant general manager Carlos Rodríguez and then-international scouting supervisor Eddie Díaz traveled to Tijuana, Mexico, to watch a Cuban outfielder they could not afford: Randy Arozarena.
The trip proved to be beneficial years later, when the Rays acquired Arozarena from the St. Louis Cardinals and helped him become a star. But it was beneficial for another reason: It helped them discover Jonathan Aranda.
Rodríguez, at that time the director of Latin American scouting, asked Díaz to line up other prospects to see during the trip. Aranda was in that group and caught their eye. The Rays signed him for $130,000 in July 2015. Ten years later, they’re watching him blossom.
Aranda, a 26-year-old left-handed hitter, ranks third with 182 weighted runs created plus this season, behind only Aaron Judge and Alonso. He’s slashing .317/.417/.554 with 14 extra-base hits. And so far, at least, he’s stealing the spotlight from Junior Caminero, widely hailed as the Rays’ next hitting phenom. It’s easy to be skeptical — Aranda’s .971 OPS is 279 points higher than his career mark in 110 games going into 2025 — but those who know him best are adamant that this is real.
Aranda has always been an elite hitter. The question was how the Rays would fit him into their major league roster. He came up as a shortstop at around the same time Wander Franco surged through the system. By the time he was on the cusp of the major leagues, the likes of Yandy Diaz, Isaac Paredes, Brandon Lowe and Ji-man Choi occupied the other infield positions.
At one point, the Rays had Aranda try catching in hopes of getting his bat to the big leagues quicker. They felt he might have the arm and the hands for it. Aranda went back to Mexico and caught a handful of bullpen sessions but decided against it. He expressed confidence that his bat would eventually be enough to reach the majors.
It looked like it would in 2024. Aranda slashed .371/.421/.571 in 13 Grapefruit League games that spring and was primed to crack the Opening Day roster. But then he broke his right ring finger fielding a grounder, missed about five weeks and struggled for most of the ensuing season. It prompted a stint in winter ball, where he made small mechanical tweaks that have helped him thrive in the early part of 2025.
But mostly, Rays officials believe, Aranda’s success stems from finally having a pathway for consistent playing time, largely as the stronger half of a DH platoon. His splits are quite drastic — 1.066 OPS against righties, three hits in 18 at-bats against lefties — but Aranda profiles as a 20-plus home run hitter who can rack up doubles and control the strike zone. It just took him a bit to get there.
Max Muncy suddenly can’t hit home runs
Max Muncy went 106 plate appearances before finally hitting his first home run of 2025 on the final day of April. It marked the longest single-season homerless streak of his career, easily topping the 80-plate-appearance rut from 2022, according to ESPN Research.
His biggest issue was one that plagues many left-handed hitters who throw right-handed.
“He gets out on his front side pretty quickly,” Dodgers hitting coach Aaron Bates explained. “Part of the challenge for him is when he needs to start his leg kick and how to maintain balance as he’s striding forward. Because he throws with his right hand and hits lefty, the right side of his body kind of dominates his swing moving toward the pitcher, which is pretty common for a lot of guys. You look at Corey Seager, he’s pretty balanced. But a lot of times, when you have a lefty-righty-combo guy, they get kind of pulled that way. So that’s something that he has to constantly battle, and he has his whole career. When he’s synced up and he’s right, it’s great. And when he’s out of whack, he’s got to work to get it right.”
Muncy spent the better part of the first month working to sync up his timing, specifically when he drives his momentum forward. Few major league hitters stay on their back side through their entire load, Aaron Judge being a notable exception. But for most of this season, Muncy was getting to his front side too early, which resulted in fouling off hittable fastballs and struggling against breaking pitches.
“When you don’t trust yourself as a hitter, you don’t wanna get beat, and so you get off your backside sooner,” Bates said. “So it’s like the chicken or the egg.”
When Muncy settled into the batter’s box in the second inning on April 30, 305 players had already homered in the major leagues this season. Muncy, with four 35-plus-homer seasons on his résumé, was not one of them. That day, he debuted prescription eyeglasses he had been testing out during pregame workouts to combat astigmatism in his right eye. The hope, Muncy told reporters, was that the glasses would make him less left-eye dominant.
But the biggest issue was a swing he had tweaked to produce low line drives instead of fly balls but wound up making him drift forward too early. Getting his weight shift back to normal proved to be a slow process. But to Bates, an encouraging sign arrived two days before Muncy’s first home run — when he stayed back on a sinker and dumped an opposite-field line drive into left-center.
Muncy has produced just the one home run — putting him in the same boat as Alec Bohm, Bo Bichette and Xander Bogaerts, and one ahead of Joc Pederson, Tommy Pham and Gabriel Moreno — and still doesn’t seem fully in sync. But he’s carrying a slightly more respectable .750 OPS since the start of that game on April 30. He’s drawing walks, displaying some power, and at some point, Bates believes, the home runs will come in bunches.
“It can be any at-bat,” Bates said, “he’s homering.”
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.
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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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Jesse Rogers
CHICAGO — Former White Sox lefty Mark Buehrle was forever immortalized inside Rate Field as the team unveiled a statue in his honor Friday.
Buehrle, 46, played 16 years in the majors, including the first 12 with the White Sox, who he helped win a World Series in 2005. He won 214 games and pitched 200 innings or more in 14 consecutive seasons from 2001 to 2014.
“I can’t put it into words,” Buehrle said after the unveiling. “You don’t play the game for any of this. You never think of number retirements or statues. I can’t even wrap my head around it. It doesn’t make sense.”
The statue is an action shot of him throwing a pitch.
His wife and kids were in attendance and helped pull off the cover to unveil the statue while his 2005 teammates looked on. The event kicked off a weekend reunion for the World Series team which went 11-1 in the postseason, beating the Houston Astros in four games to take home the title.
Buehrle was a five-time All-Star and four-time Gold Glove winner, finishing fifth in Cy Young voting in 2005.
“Well-deserved,” former right fielder Jermaine Dye said of the statue. “Great teammate. Great leader. Definitely someone you want on a ballclub to lead a pitching staff.”
The White Sox rotation — led by Buehrle — threw four complete games in the ALCS against the Boston Red Sox in 2005, missing a fifth complete game by two-thirds of an inning. It’s an unheard of accomplishment in today’s game since starters infrequently go the distance.
Besides being an innings-eater on the mound, Buehrle was a fast worker — a favorite trait of his catcher, A.J Pierzynski. And he wasn’t someone who threw a lot of different pitches. He caught it and threw it without much input from behind the plate.
“He was fast,” Pierzynski said. “We had Jermaine Dye calling pitches from right field some games. We did come crazy things you wouldn’t recommend to people to do nowadays.”
Buehrle is a notoriously low-key guy who hates the spotlight but even he was moved by the team’s decision to honor him with a statue, which joins former slugger Harold Baines in the right-field concourse.
“I joked with him when I saw him,” Dye said. “I told him ‘Man it takes you getting a statue to get you out of the house.'”
Buehrle added: “I was literally nervous as can be today. This is not my comfort zone but by no means am I taking it lightly. This is incredible.”
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