There are some, many, in fact, who believe that the first week of May is way too early to scoreboard watch or to be even remotely concerned about the MLB standings. To them, I offer this little tidbit: A loss in April or May carries the exact same weight as a loss in September or October – up to and including the final game of the regular season. In other words, the oft-uttered phrase “It’s still early” is a bunch of hooey. (Have you ever noticed that when someone says “It’s still early,” it’s always after a loss and not after a win?).

The point here is that even though the Dodgers still have 139 games remaining in the 2022 regular season, every game of every team’s 162 games carries the exact same weight in determining who advances to the postseason and who does not – period.

Still an “It’s still early” type? Check out this Twitter post by USA TODAY‘s Bob Nightengale late Friday night:

Ironically, Nightengale’s tweet came before the NL Central second-place St. Louis Cardinals beat the NL West fourth-place San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park on Friday night. As such, instead of picking up a half-game on the rained-out NL West first-place Dodgers, they fell back another half-game in the divisional standings, which, as of this writing, looks like this:

Still think “It’s still early?”

Play Ball!

  *  *  *  *  *  *