Surprise! There's been quite a bit of parity in the race for baseball's best record
Instead, the race for baseball's best record has turned into a free for all.
If there were any concerns about a Los Angeles behemoth running roughshod over the sport, that hasn't materialized so far. In fact, eight different teams have spent the past three months passing baseball's best record around like a hot potato.
The race for the top record in the major leagues is in many ways symbolic. Home field advantage in the postseason isn't quite the prize it is in the NFL or NBA, and there's no Presidents' Trophy given for regular-season excellence like in the NHL. But the number of teams that have taken a turn at the top is noteworthy. Since May 1, the Dodgers, Tigers, Padres, Mets, Phillies, Cubs, Brewers and Blue Jays all have held the best record at some point.
Five of those teams have held the top spot in an even more recent span — since July 1.
Since the American League and National League began expanding significantly in 1961, this is only the fifth time at least eight teams have held (or tied for) the best record in baseball through games of May 1 or later, according to Sportrader. One of those seasons was 2020, when the whole 60-game schedule was after that date. The others were 1963 (eight teams), 1982 (eight) and 2021 (nine).
The largest lead any team has been able to open on the rest of the majors — all season — is when Detroit was three games up for a few days shortly before the All-Star break.
Here are the teams (or pairs of teams) that have led the major league standings at the end of each day since the start of May.
May 1-7: Dodgers
May 8-9: Dodgers and Tigers
May 10: Padres
May 11-12: Dodgers
May 13: Mets and Tigers
May 14: Tigers
May 15: Dodgers and Tigers
May 16-22: Tigers
May 23-27: Phillies
May 28-June 10: Tigers
June 11-12: Mets
June 13-24: Tigers
June 25-26: Dodgers and Tigers
June 27: Dodgers
June 28-30: Dodgers and Tigers
July 1-4: Dodgers
July 5: Dodgers and Tigers
July 6-18: Tigers
July 19: Cubs
July 20: Tigers
July 21: Brewers
July 22: Brewers and Cubs
July 23-24: Brewers
July 25-27: Blue Jays
July 28-Aug. 3: Brewers
Trivia time
Seven of baseball's current franchises have never finished with game's best regular-season record. Who are they?
LA's story
For the first few weeks of the season, it looked like the Dodgers might indeed be on their way to well over 100 wins. The defending champs — who had added pitchers Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki in the offseason — won their first eight games, but since then Los Angeles has looked mortal. In early June, the Dodgers had 14 pitchers on the injured list, and although they're in first place in their division, their current winning percentage of .580 would be their worst since 2018 if that's where they finish the season.
Line of the week
Pittsburgh's Liover Peguero hit three home runs in an 8-5 loss to Colorado. It was a tough defeat to swallow for the Pirates, who actually gave ace Paul Skenes some run support, only for him to allow four runs in five-plus innings.
Comeback of the week
On the topic of tough losses to swallow, the Pirates also fell to the Rockies — after scoring nine runs in the top of the first. Pittsburgh led 16-10 before allowing two in the eighth and five in the bottom of the ninth. Brenton Doyle hit a two-run homer to win it 17-16 for Colorado, which had a win probability of 0.5% in the eighth according to Baseball Savant.
The Rockies are the only team this season to win after falling nine runs behind, and they continue to make progress in their effort to avoid matching or breaking the modern record for losses set by the Chicago White Sox last year. Colorado went 3-3 this week and is now 30-81 on the season. The White Sox went 41-121
Trivia answer
Unsurprisingly, the seven are among the majors' younger franchises — the Rays, Diamondbacks, Marlins, Rockies, Blue Jays, Padres and Rangers.
Of the teams that have finished with the best record in baseball, the one with the longest current drought is the Twins, who last did so in 1965.
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