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Is there a way to tell if a Major League Baseball team is just off to a slow start or if it’s just going to be a bad season? Obviously when you look at teams before the season starts you can kind of tell who should be a contender and who shouldn’t, but how do you account for a team that just seems to have all of the breaks go against them. This has nothing to do with injuries either just teams that should be in better positions in the standings than they are right now.

The St. Louis Cardinals might be the first team that comes to a lot of people mind. On paper the Cardinals look like the best team in a weak National League Central division, but here we are coming up on July 1st and St. Louis finds itself in last place at 31-45 9 1/2 games behind the division leading Cincinnati Reds.

For whatever reason this season every time the Cardinals find a way to win some games in a row and look like they’re turning things around they end up going right into a multiple game losing streak. Just last week the Cardinals put together their second four-game winning streak of the season, but St. Louis has now dropped their last two games and will try to stop this current losing streak when they wrap up their two-game series in London against the Chicago Cubs. That game actually starts in just a little over an hour.

St. Louis isn’t the only team in MLB that hasn’t player up to what was expected before the season started. You could throw in teams like the New York Mets, San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners and the entire American League Central division.

Humorously you could almost toss the Los Angeles Dodgers into this conversation. However, the Dodgers have played well and are 10 games over .500 at 43-33 and are currently on a four-game winning streak. Oddly even with a record that good the Dodgers find themselves sitting in 3rd place in what is turning out to be an interesting N.L. West division race.

The Arizona Diamondbacks are leading the N.L. West while the San Francisco Giants have moved past the Dodgers and into 2nd place. Fortunately for the Dodgers even though they find themselves in 3rd place they’re just 2 games out of 1st place.

We’re actually close to the point in the season where you might also have to add the Houston Astros into this situation. Just like the Dodgers the Astros have a winning record 41-36, but unlike the Dodgers the Astros are 6 1/2 games out of 1st place.

The Texas Rangers are currently leading the American League West and the Los Angeles Angels are in 2nd place, but they are just 1/2 a game ahead of the Astros.

The Astros have lost their last two games and have lost seven of their last nine games. Houston will try to break that losing streak tonight as they wrap up their series against the Dodgers.

It’s difficult to rule any of these teams out of potentially turning things around, but as it’s gets later and later into the season you have to wonder how long it will be before it’s too late for them to turn things around.

If you remember just last season the Philadelphia Phillies struggled out of the gate and there was a lot of talk about how disappointing their season was. Well, the Phillies turned things around and captured one of the N.L. Wild card spots and made it all the way to the World Series.

The difference between last year’s Philadelphia team and the teams we mentioned earlier was the fact that the Phillies started turning their season around about a month earlier on June 1st.

Back in 2019 the Washington Nationals struggled until just about this point in the season. The Nationals were 38-40 and 8 games out of 1st place on June 25th, 2019. From that point on the Nationals went 35-29 the rest of the season and went on to win the World Series.

Now it’s unclear if will see a team turn things around like Philadelphia did last season or that Washington did in 2019, but how big of a surprise would it be for one of these teams disappointing teams to turn things around and get into or win the World Series this season.

Remember to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.