Baseball’s weekly power rankings did not stop at sorting teams from first to worst. They also made a prediction about the next two months, using the first two months of the season as a guide, and the early answer in the National League pointed again to the Dodgers, the Braves and Shohei Ohtani.
Ohtani is the flashpoint. His ERA is currently under 1.00, a number that would look absurd even in a small sample, but his FIP is nearly two runs higher than that mark, a warning sign that the run prevention may not last. He even captured the mood himself with the line, “I’m going to try to win the Cy Young because it sounds neat.”
The Dodgers remain the safest known quantity in the NL picture. Since Barack Obama’s first presidential term, they have won every NL West title except one, a stretch of control that explains why any ranking involving the National League starts with them as the standard-bearer. The Braves are right there too, with the most wins in baseball and the second-best run differential in baseball, and they have hardly shown any sign of collapse. They have yet to lose more than three games in a row, and they have dropped back-to-back games only three times.
That stability matters because the rankings are not just a snapshot of what has happened. They are a forecast for what comes next. The writers behind the list said baseball has already delivered surprises through the first two months, pointing to the Mets doing worse than expected and the Rays doing better than expected. The Rays, in fact, own the best start in the American League, while Nick Martinez, 35 years old, has the second-best ERA in the majors. Those two names help frame the broader point: the season’s first half has already produced enough turnover to make even the strongest early records feel fragile.
The tension for the National League is that the cleanest results do not always match the underlying numbers. Ohtani’s ERA has been brilliant, but the gap between that figure and his FIP suggests the edge may not hold. The Dodgers’ hold on the division has been nearly automatic for more than a decade, yet the rankings also serve as a reminder that baseball can still hand out surprises when the calendar turns. If the next two months follow the shape of the first two, the National League race will still run through Los Angeles and Atlanta, but the numbers underneath the standings could shift before anyone gets comfortable.
