It’s been a rather fascinating season. Coming into today, none of the eight teams who were in the top eight in the majors through June 30th were in the top eight at the start of Sunday. It looked early on that there would not be many good division races, and now we have three or four depending on how the Astros game turns out tonight. While the Phillies and Guardians dominated the first half, the Diamondbacks (34-13 including Sunday) and the Astros (27-19 entering today) lead since. Oakland and Detroit are above .500, while the Royals, Mets, Cubs, and Padres turned it up a notch as well.

Even the Rockies played much better since July 1. Only the White Sox, Marlins, and Angels posted consistently bad records. For the most part, most fans had a stretch where they could feel good about their team, and except for the Brewers, a stretch where they worried that everything was falling apart.