their offense was spectacularly bad for the first month and a half or whatever - it's still been pretty damn bad, although mccutcheon is awesome. they've been winning a lot of close games. half their pitchers are heavily outpitching their peripherals. their xFIP is like 3/4 of a run higher than their ERA. by pyth, they should be 8 games behind the cards; instead they're 2 games ahead. basically it's a lot of smoke and mirrors and unlikely that they'll stay in first, but i suppose crazier things have happened. So it's pretty much like when they were in first last year? I'm pulling for them though, then the Nationals and Orioles are all teams I'm hoping can make the playoffs this year. With the Cubs out of it I find it easy to pull for underdog teams in baseball.