At the beginning of the 2023 season, the St. Louis Cardinals were heavily favored to win the National League Central division for a second straight year.
After all, they won 93 games last season and beat the Milwaukee Brewers to the top by seven games.
While it’s still early in the season, the division has followed quite a different narrative.
It is now the Brewers who are at the top of the division.
They defeated the Seattle Mariners in extra innings on Tuesday night by a final score of 6-5.
Meanwhile, the Cardinals dropped the second game of their series against the surprisingly hot Arizona Diamondbacks and fell to 7-11 on the year.
On Twitter, MLB insider Bob Nightengale noted how the tables have seemingly turned in the NL Central.
The Milwaukee #Brewers keep rolling, winning 6-5 in 11 innings over the Seattle #Mariners.
They have a 5.5-game lead over the heavily-favored #STLCards— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) April 19, 2023
After Tuesday’s slate of games concluded, the Brewers had quite a commanding lead over the Cardinals in the NL Central.
Meanwhile, teams such as the Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates have performed well, while the Cincinnati Reds are also in front of the Cardinals in the NL Central.
And this is quite the opposite of what many people had expected going into the season.
After St. Louis had signed Willson Contreras, their offense looked to be quite dangerous and many were expecting them to cruise to another NL Central title.
That is obviously still possible given that it’s early in the season, but baseball is a strange game and right now, it’s the Brewers who are taking care of business in the NL Central and own the second-best record in the National League.
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