Baseball standings, April 30, 2015

Let’s see who’s leading each division, shall we?

AL East – Yankees by a game over the Rays and Red Sox. The Os are 2 games back and the Jays 2 1/2. Nothing particularly unusual there. Next!

AL Central – The Royals by a 1/2 game over the Tigers. The Twins, White Sox and Indians are all 5 games back or even more. Okay, that’s not much of a surprise. Next!

AL West – The Astros lead the Angels by 4 games. What? The Astros? The team that lost over 100 games in 3 of the last 4 seasons? My goodness, what’s going on in Houston? The Mariners, Athletics and Rangers are all within 7 1/2 games. Next!

NL East – The Mets lead the Braves and Marlins by 4 1/2 games. What’s going on here? The Mets have had six straight seasons in which they lost more than they won! The Nationals were picked by many to win the World Series, but they’re 3 games under .500 and 5 games back. The Phillies are even worse. Next!

NL Central – The Cardinals lead the Cubs by 2 1/2 games. The Cards aren’t a surprise, but the Cubs, prophesied by “experts” to be vastly improved this season, actually seem to be living up to the hype so far. The Pirates are 3 1/2 back, the Reds 4 1/2 back, and the Brewers are already out by 10 1/2 games. Next!

NL West – The Dodgers lead the Rockies by 2 games, the Padres and Diamondbacks by 3, and the Giants by 4 1/2. The surprise here is the Rockies.

So there you have it after one month. Two surprise division leaders in the Mets and Astros, and everybody else performing more or less as expected.