Things never go exactly according to plan over the course of a Major League Baseball season. In fact, many plans are already off the rails by the time the final out is recorded on Opening Day.
That is how storylines are made, and that is where a season’s worth of surprises and disappointments are born. For better and worse, the first few months of this one have ushered in the unexpected.
From the team no one saw coming, to the player living below expectations, to the out-of-nowhere game-changing trends, to the team expected to be a World Series contender looking like a midseason bust, they are all part of the ebbs and flows of the baseball summer.
This season has already given us all of those things and then some, like the stunning rise of the Houston Astros and the incredible decline of stars like Matt Kemp and Pablo Sandoval. Keep clicking to see some of the biggest surprises and disappointments at the season’s halfway mark.