Surprise! The Pittsburgh Pirates, Washington Nats are in first – for now

Quick. Look before it’s too late. The Pittsburgh Pirates, a team that has floundered through 19 straight losing seasons, is in first place in baseball’s National League Central division.

The last time they made the playoffs, in 1992, a much thinner Barry Bonds was the team’s top star. That was also the last time the Pirates had a winning record at the All-Star break – until a year ago, when they fizzled out after a surprising first-half start.

Now, as the second half of the current season begins, Pittsburgh fans will hold their breath, hoping that MVP candidate Andrew McCutchen (.362 batting average and 18 home runs) can remain hot.

On the other side of Pennsylvania, the Phillies have been perhaps the season’s biggest disappointment. After five straight seasons as champions of the National League East, Philadelphia is scraping bottom, 14 games behind the division-leading Washington Nationals. The cellar dwellers have already lost 50 games after losing only 60 all last season.

The Phillies’ demise is partly a factor of injuries (all-stars Ryan Howard and Chase Utley and Roy Halladay have missed most of the season), but that can’t easily explain why it’s so badly underachieving.

At this point, the Washington Nationals own the largest lead of any first-place National League team (four games). The Pirates are only up a half game on Cincinnati, and the Los Angeles Dodgers, under new ownership, are a mere half game ahead of the San Francisco Giants.   

Since the Nationals franchise began as the Montreal Expos in 1969, it is one of only three teams that have never been to the World Series (Houston and Seattle being the others). Now, however, it’s hardly far-fetched to imagine Washington making it to the Fall Classic, if not this year, then sometime soon. After all, the Nats own the best winning percentage (.590) in the National League. 

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