Two full months into the MLB season, the American League only has four teams above .500, while the National League has 11. Those are the fewest and most teams from either league, respectively, to be above .500 as of May 28 since MLB expanded to 30 franchises in 1998.
A number of slumping AL teams are to blame. The Toronto Blue Jays, fresh off a World Series appearance, are one of the many teams with a losing record dealing with injuries. The Detroit Tigers, after back-to-back winning seasons, find themselves with the worst record in the AL as Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal recently underwent surgery on his pitching elbow. The Houston Astros’ pitching has failed them, and they’re stuck at 26-32.
Amazingly, two of the best AL teams weren’t even supposed to be good. The Tampa Rays have the league’s best record at 34-19, but were projected to win only 77.5 games by DraftKings prior to the season. The Chicago White Sox had the lowest projected win total by sportsbooks but have a 29-27 record thanks in part to Davis Martin’s surprising development into an elite starting pitcher and slugger Munetaka Murakami’s arrival from Japan.
The current disparity between the AL and NL, however, wouldn’t be possible without MLB’s “balanced schedule” that’s been in effect since the 2023 season. Prior to the change, teams played just 20 interleague games per season (roughly 12% of the schedule), meaning that if one of the two leagues was inferior in quality, that league’s teams would still accumulate wins simply by playing each other frequently. Now, teams play 48 interleague games (roughly 28% of the schedule), so any imbalance in talent between the leagues will appear more pronounced in the win-loss records.
The record in head-to-head interleague games is actually not historically lopsided—the NL has won roughly 57%, which would be the third highest percentage by a league in interleague play, behind the AL in 2006 and 2008. Back then, interleague play was also confined to a few weeks, mostly in June, so a gap between the two leagues would not have shown up in the standings yet by late May.
Another change in 2023 was a decrease in the number of division games from 76 to 52, increasing the likelihood of a scenario in which an entire division is below .500. That is the current situation in the AL West, which is led by the 28-29 Seattle Mariners.
Aside from strike-shortened seasons or the expanded postseason field in 2020 due to the pandemic, no team has ever made the MLB playoffs with a losing record—the closest was the 2005 San Diego Padres at 82-80.
That could change this year.
