Late April is when most hot starts in baseball begin to cool. Pitching catches up to the bats. Schedules get harder. Regression to the mean does what it always does. This year, two surprise teams have made it through the first month with their leads intact and the underlying numbers say they earned it. The Cincinnati Reds are 18-7 and lead the National League Central by four games. The Detroit Tigers are 17-8 and sit one back of the Yankees in the AL East.
For the Reds, the story is starting pitching. Hunter Greene is leading the National League in strikeouts and has not allowed more than two earned runs in any of his five starts. Behind him, Andrew Abbott has put up a 2.41 ERA across six starts. The bullpen has converted 9 of 10 save opportunities. When you score 5.1 runs per game and your pitching staff gives up 3.2, you win baseball games at the rate Cincinnati is winning them.
The lineup has been led by Elly De La Cruz, who is hitting .321 with 7 home runs and 12 stolen bases through Saturday's game. De La Cruz is on pace for a season that would put him in the MVP conversation, though it is too early to call anything. Spencer Steer has hit .298 in the cleanup spot. The bottom of the order has been productive in a way the Reds have not been since 2012.
Detroit is the more measured story. The Tigers built their team around pitching and defense, and through 25 games both have shown up. Tarik Skubal has continued his Cy Young form with a 1.97 ERA. Jack Flaherty signed in the offseason for three years and 84 million has put up a 2.61 ERA. The starting rotation as a unit ranks second in MLB by ERA. The defense ranks first in defensive runs saved.
The bats are not carrying the Tigers and that is fine. Detroit is hitting .244 as a team, which puts them in the bottom third of MLB. What they are doing is taking walks at a high rate, which keeps innings alive, and they have been opportunistic with runners in scoring position. Riley Greene is hitting .312 and Colt Keith has been the steady second baseman they hoped for when they signed him long term.
Both teams have schedule advantages baked in. The Reds got 14 of their first 25 games at Great American Ballpark, where their lineup plays up. The next three weeks include road trips to St. Louis, Arizona, and Los Angeles, all of which are tougher tests. If Cincinnati comes home from the West Coast still in first place, the contender narrative becomes much harder to dismiss.
Detroit's path is similar. Their April included home series against the Royals, White Sox, and Athletics. May brings Boston, Houston, and the Yankees in back to back to back series. By Memorial Day, the Tigers will have faced enough quality pitching for the league to know whether the bats can carry their share of the weight when the rotation eventually has a tough stretch.
The teams that have not surprised are also worth noting. The Dodgers are 16-9, on pace, and probably underperforming if anything. The Yankees are 18-7, leading the AL East, and powered by an offense that has been about what was projected. The Phillies are 17-8 and have been the best team in the National League by run differential. None of those starts are surprising.
The disappointments are sharper than the surprises. The Mets are 11-14 and have been outscored by 27 runs through 25 games. The Astros are 10-15 and look every bit like a team in transition. The Cardinals at 11-14 are still figuring out what kind of team they want to be. The Cardinals losing the division race to the Reds was not on most analyst boards entering the season.
For Reds and Tigers fans, the question is what they should believe right now. Pythagorean win expectation, which estimates wins from runs scored and runs allowed, says the Reds should be 17-8 and the Tigers should be 16-9. Both teams are within one game of their expected record, which means they are not winning on luck. They are winning on actual performance.
May is when the season starts to take shape. Six weeks of baseball is enough sample size to begin trusting what you see. If Cincinnati and Detroit are still leading or close to leading their divisions on June 1, the conversations about Wild Card races and division titles will need to seriously include both teams. The April numbers say it is not crazy to start having those conversations now.