The A’s boast a 75 percent postseason probability, per Baseball Reference.
It’s time for an MLB standings review as teams reach the three-quarter pole of the season. Also: Relief for Ian Happ and an early Baseball Card of the Week with a twist. I’m Tyler Kepner, filling in for Levi Weaver. Welcome to The Windup!
Trending: Standouts, good and bad, from every division
Did you know the term “quarter pole” refers to the distance to the finish line? I always thought it meant distance from the start. Good thing I cover baseball instead of horse racing.
Regardless, every team has played roughly a quarter of its schedule. If you haven’t paid attention to the standings yet, now’s a good time to start. Here’s an observation from each of the six divisions:
**NL East — Mets (15-25), 12.5 games behind the Braves:** Teams often stress winning series. The Mets just went 5-4 on a West Coast trip through Anaheim, Denver, and Phoenix—yet lost ground in the standings. At 10 games under .500, they should focus on the wild-card race. They left Citi Field on April 30 trailing by 11.5 games in that race but now trail by eight. They still own MLB’s worst record (15-25), but progress is progress, and a potential boost is expected to arrive today.
**NL Central — Pirates (22-19), five games behind the Cubs:** Set aside the Brewers, who are always strong. Among the three teams chasing the Cubs, Pittsburgh may have the best chance to contend all summer. The Pirates are confident at the plate and on the mound. Only six MLB teams average five runs per game with an ERA under 4.00: the Yankees, Dodgers, Braves, Brewers, Cubs, and the Pirates.
**NL West — Rockies (16-25), one game behind the Giants:** This feels like 1993 all over again for the Rockies. That was their expansion season, expected to finish last with 95 losses. But they didn’t because the Padres were terrible and sold off their best players. It’s worth wondering if the woeful 2026 Giants will play that role.
**AL East — Orioles (19-23), nine games behind the Rays:** As Brittany Ghiroli wrote last week, the Orioles can thank the rest of the mediocre AL for still having playoff hope. But on their own, they’ve struggled. The rotation’s ERA was 5.07 before yesterday, ahead of only Houston and Colorado. The defense has been shaky. Will we see the versions of Colton Cowser, Coby Mayo, and Gunnar Henderson that once excited the industry? Maybe Mayo’s performance yesterday is a start: He belted a go-ahead three-run homer in the seventh to beat the Yankees 3-2 at Camden Yards.
**AL Central — White Sox (19-21), 1.5 games behind the Guardians:** Are the White Sox good now? After 324 losses over three seasons, “kinda” is encouraging. They’ve taken series from Toronto, Arizona, San Diego, and Seattle—all preseason contenders. Hitters like Munetaka Murakami, Colson Montgomery, and Sam Antonacci command attention. Starter Davis Martin has made seven straight starts allowing two or fewer runs.
**AL West — A’s (21-19), two games ahead of the Mariners:** Yesterday, Baseball Reference gave the A’s a 75 percent chance to make the postseason. That feels aggressive, but they’re fun to watch. Sluggers Nick Kurtz, Brent Rooker, and Tyler Soderstrom—each with only five home runs—haven’t even gotten hot yet. Maybe they’re afraid of that terrifying elephant home run mask (pictured above).
**More trends:** In this week’s Power Rankings, every team gets at least one reason to believe.
**Posting: Cubs’ hot start very welcome for Happ**
Things have gone so well for the 27-14 Cubs that even after losing a series to the Rangers over the weekend, they still hold a 3.5-game lead in the NL Central. Only the Braves (running away with the NL East) have a bigger division lead. With the Cubs meeting the Braves today for the first time this season, it’s a good time to check out Patrick Mooney’s excellent story on Ian Happ.
I’ve always felt kind of bad for Happ, who made his MLB debut nine years ago tomorrow. At the time, the Cubs were baseball’s toast, fresh off their first championship in 108 years. Happ, a first-round pick in 2015, was the latest dynamic young player to join a party that promised to continue. But the Cubs never returned to the World Series. They were very good for Happ’s first four years, then bad or mediocre for his next four. When they returned to the postseason last fall, Happ went 3-for-30 in two playoff rounds.
A four-time Gold Glove winner, Happ is off to a good start this season, his last before free agency. Mooney details how veterans Anthony Rizzo and Cole Hamels made a lasting impact, especially on his status as a guy who “posts.” Players who do that, Mooney writes, “force their way into the lineup with their talent and willpower. It’s being available and having the fortitude to play through aches and pains.”
The Cubs already have Alex Bregman, Nico Hoerner, and Dansby Swanson signed into their mid-30s, so it’s uncertain if they’ll make another long-term commitment to Happ, who turns 32 in August. But in a game full of unpredictability, no attribute is more respected than doing all you can to be ready to help your teammates every day—and that’s Happ.
**Baseball Card of the Week: Trivia lesson from a 1977 Topps Rusty Staub**
With the Tigers and Mets starting a three-game series at Citi Field today, it’s a good time to salute Rusty Staub, the answer to one of baseball’s greatest trivia questions: Who is the only player in MLB history to get 500 hits for four different teams?
The best trivia questions are like Russian nesting dolls. Remove layer after layer to get closer to the answer. The outer shell is every player in baseball history. From the question, we know the player got at least 2,000 hits—so remove that shell, shedding everyone who didn’t. That leaves 298 players with 2,000 hits. Next, think of well-traveled, very good hitters like Roberto Alomar, Adrián Beltré, Carlos Beltrán, and Gary Sheffield—mostly from the modern era when players change teams more often.
The fun begins: Did this player play for four teams long enough to get 500 hits in each place? That requires at least three seasons (likely four) with each team. So eliminate those with shorter stints. Beltré, for instance, had 750 hits with the Dodgers, Mariners, and Rangers but only one year with the Red Sox.
Great trivia questions also have misdirection, leading you down a logical dead end. Here, the misdirection is the era: Staub played most of his career before free agency, so you wouldn’t necessarily think of players from his era. Staub didn’t hop around on three- or four-year contracts; he was traded fairly regularly from 1963 to 1979: six years with Houston, three with Montreal, four with the Mets, three-plus with Detroit. By then, he had 500 hits in all those spots.
He finished with 2,716 hits—792 with the Colt .45s/Astros, 709 with the Mets, 582 with the Tigers, and 531 with the Expos, where he earned his memorable nickname “Le Grand Orange” for his distinctive hair color. The nickname fit elsewhere, too: The Astros, Tigers, and Mets all have orange in their color scheme.
Staub played 1980 for the Rangers and lasted five more in New York as a pinch-hitting specialist, restaurateur, and class act with a deep commitment to the families of fallen police officers and firefighters, which endured after his death in 2018 at age 73.
**Handshakes and High Fives**
As the splitter rises in popularity, why do left-handers rarely throw it? Eno Sarris and Fabian Ardaya investigated.
Interim manager Chad Tracy has brought calm to the Red Sox following the “flawed and clumsy” firing of Alex Cora, as Steve Buckley writes.
The Braves claim their new broadcast network is thriving, but executives remain tight-lipped about sharing specific subscriber data.
Most-clicked in our last newsletter: Ken Rosenthal’s Buster Posey column.
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