We have come to the end of the first full two months of the MLB season. We’re a third of the way through! Can you believe it? Weren’t we just watching those Tokyo Series games yesterday? Alas, it really is June, a new month, and one that may end up having to answer some of the urgent questions the month of May posed. We’ve got four more full months of the regular season moving forward, but June, being the last one before the month of the Trade Deadline, is a pivotal one. Which direction is this all going to go?
What are the big questions June will answer? Let’s take a look.
1. How long can Aaron Judge flirt with .400?
Aaron Judge is not, currently, hitting .400. He is currently sitting at .398. What a slacker, right? Look, it’s unlikely Judge is going to hit .400. He has never hit higher than .322 in his career, and, as you may remember, no one has hit .400 in going on about 85 years now. But as long as Judge is within shouting distance, it is going to remain a major storyline. Our Sarah Langs last year looked at how far into the season past .400 hitters made it; the longest since 2000 was Luis Arraez just two years ago, to June 24. Can Judge get back over .400 any time this month? All it takes is one good game.
2. Will the Braves finally get it going this month?
The Braves began the season 0-7 and have been trying to crawl their way back ever since. They briefly climbed over .500 on May 18 but promptly lost five of their next six. Their series against the Phillies at the end of May, with Ronald Acuña Jr. back in the lineup, was supposed to be the start of their march back to being the Braves, but Philly won two of three. You could forgive the slow start, all told, because Acuña and Spencer Strider began the year on the injured list. But they’re back now. This is the team the Braves were supposed to be. So if they don’t make a run now -- and by “make a run,” I mean “go after a Wild Card spot,” because they are already 8 1/2 games behind the Phils -- when are they going to? We saw the Braves make runs in 2021 and 2022. If they’re going to make another one, June is when it needs to start.
3. Who are going to be the breakout All-Star vote-getters?
The All-Star ballot is going to be out next week, and you can be sure that the usual suspects will top all the vote totals. Aaron Judge. Shohei Ohtani. Mookie Betts. But there have been some real breakouts of the season’s first third whose numbers are going to look mighty pretty on that MLB.com ballot. The Cubs’ Pete Crow-Armstrong. The Nationals’ James Wood. The A’s Jacob Wilson. One of the nice things about voting online is that all the stats are right there for you to see, and sort, and understand, which allows players like those three, who aren’t yet household names but have put up some magical numbers so far, get noticed in a way they might not otherwise. The way the ballot is now structured, players having emergent seasons can get recognition … and make this All-Star bid the first of many.
4. Are the Cubs secretly the best team in the NL?
You knew this was going to be a good Cubs team when they went through their April schedule gauntlet -- in which they played the Dodgers seven times and the Padres six times, as well as the Phillies, Diamondbacks and Rangers -- and came out of it still comfortably in first place. Since then, the schedule has gotten much easier: Their last two weeks have featured the Marlins, White Sox and Rockies, seemingly every night. They’ve feasted on those teams, and the result has been the best record in the National League (tied with three other teams) and the second-best run differential in baseball. The offense is overwhelming right now, with Kyle Tucker arguably the second-best MVP candidate on the team: Pete Crow-Armstrong, while playing Gold Glove caliber defense, is on pace for a 40-40 season. The Cubs could use some pitching help, and if they handle June the way they handled May, they could put the NL Central in the bag by Independence Day.
5. Will we get some clarity in the NL West and the AL East?
The two teams that made the World Series last year, the Dodgers and the Yankees, lead their respective divisions. (Though it should be noted the Dodgers are barely on pace to win 100 games, despite all those “they’re going to break the win record!” takes from early April. Some of us told you this!) But the standings behind them are a bit of a morass. In the NL West, the Giants have been a pleasant surprise early, but a recent skid has them behind the Padres as the D-backs (a team many thought would be ahead of both of them) have been bouncing around .500. Maybe those teams won’t catch up with the Dodgers, but who will separate from the others? The AL East is even wilder. A recent hot streak put the Rays into a tie for second place, which said a little about them but said a lot about the struggles of the Red Sox, the Blue Jays and especially the Orioles, who have been the biggest disappointment in baseball this year. Will June give us any sort of sense of what the heck is going on in these divisions?
6. Is Ohtani going to stay on a 60-homer pace? While getting ready to pitch?
There haven’t been many hitters hotter than Ohtani over the last few weeks, and not only is he tied with Cal Raleigh for the Major League lead in homers with 22, he has himself on pace for 60-plus. It feels like reaching the hallowed number of 60 homers is the only thing left he hasn’t done. So let’s see if he can do it! If so, he’d become the seventh player in MLB history to do it, and the second in the last 20 years. Wouldn’t that be something? It might be even more so if he pitches the day he does it -- we’ll be finding more about when that’s going to happen this June, too.
7. Who will be the first seller?
You don’t have to wait until July to start making trades you know; heck, one of the biggest ones from last year, the Padres getting Luis Arraez from the Marlins, even happened in May. We didn’t get any big trades in May this year, but we seem primed for several in June. We certainly have lots of teams who look ready to shift into selling mode. Will it be the Marlins again? The White Sox? The Pirates? The Rockies? The most fascinating team may be those Orioles. There isn’t a team in baseball that wouldn’t want pending free agent Cedric Mullins. Will the Orioles pull the trigger? Or will they try to climb their way back up the standings? June is the month we will find out for sure.