Throughout the season, the CBS Sports MLB experts will bring you a weekly Batting Around roundtable breaking down pretty much anything. The latest news, a historical question, thoughts about the future of baseball, all sorts of stuff. Last week we debated the best closer in baseball. This week we’re going to tackle teams that surprised us in April.
Good or bad, which team has surprised you most one month into 2025?
R.J. Anderson: The Orioles. I knew coming into the spring that Baltimore’s pitching staff had some serious downside risk. I overlooked it, assuming that they’d get things sorted out and would end the season as one of, if not the best teams in the American League. Maybe they will — I’m not going to give up the ghost just yet — but I must confess I did not foresee them completing the first month of the season with the worst run differential on the Junior Circuit. Honorable mentions to the Tigers (who I did not foresee playing this well), the Reds, and the Giants.
Dayn Perry: I’ll have to go with the Giants. As I write this — meaning this could change by the time you read this — they’re tied for first place in the most brutal division in baseball, and they have the best run differential in that same division. San Fran may still find its expected level, which means fourth place ahead of only the Rockies, but without question they’ve defied expectations thus far. Indeed, the Giants have been one of the best teams in baseball to date, and they’ve achieved that despite playing one of MLB’s toughest schedules. Jung Hoo Lee’s production at the plate thus far has in particular been a pleasant surprise.
Mike Axisa: I was going to say the Giants as well. For the sake of variety, I’ll go with the Mariners, who have been one of the best offensive teams in baseball. Who saw that coming? Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. They did lead the American League in runs after installing Hall of Famer Edgar Martinez as hitting coach last August, after all. It’s carried over to 2025. The Mariners sitting atop a not great AL West is not a surprise, really. I’m surprised about how they’re going about it. They’re doing with offense, not pitching. Logan Gilbert and George Kirby are both on the injured list with arm trouble and that is something I would have assumed would sink Seattle’s season pretty much instantly.
Matt Snyder: I’m also going with the Giants. They’ve had the second-toughest schedule after the Cubs so far and pretty much everyone assumed they’d be the fourth-place team in the NL West. At best, they were viewed as a fringe contender sitting on the periphery of the National League playoff picture and many thought they wouldn’t even be that good. Instead, they’ve mostly been in the mix for the best record in the league. I’m not sure they can keep this up, but I also can’t shake that 2021 feeling when so many people were just assuming they’d fall back to Earth sooner rather than later. Instead, they just kept winning, all the way up to 107 games in the regular season.
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