MLB Weekly Recap (June 1-7): The Middle of the Pack is Getting Interesting!

Hey babes!

In this week’s MLB recap, we’re talking surprise sweeps, underdog teams making noise, and why June is when the season really starts to reveal itself.

We cover:

• The Tigers sweeping the Rays
• The Brewers and Braves continuing to dominate
• My Sneaky Team of the Week
• Teams that are heating up
• Teams that are cooling down
• Fernando Tatis Jr.’s first home run of the season
• The current home run leaderboard
• A division leader check-in around the league

Plus, my soft take of the week on why every team gets a chapter during a 162-game season.

And don’t forget: All-Star voting is officially open! My All-Star Game explainer episode will be dropping next week~

Thanks for joining me in the softest corner of sports media! 

Follow me on Instagram!

Subscribe to my Substack!

Get my Baseball Score Log on Amazon!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey babe, welcome to Baseball for Girls, where baseball meets soft girl energy. I'm Donnessy, and here we do baseball with heart, humanity, and a little humor. So whether you're brand new to the game or deep in your baseball era, you're in the right place. So grab something cozy. Settle in, and let's get into today's episode. Let's play ball.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

It's been a few weeks now since I've been able to do a weekly recap, but I am so excited to be able to get you guys one for this week. So this is a recap for the week of June 1st through June 7th. And overall, the weekly vibe for this week is really that the middle of the pack is really getting interesting. So it seems like a lot of the kind of underdog teams, the teams that no one was really paying attention to, were really having a good week this past week, especially with sweeping teams in a way that was not expected. So to jump right in, the sweeps for this week, the Marlins swept the Nationals, the uh Detroit Tigers swept the Tampa Bay Rays, and the Phillies swept the Padres, so that was for during the weekday series. And then over this past weekend, the Milwaukee Brewers swept the Colorado Rockies, the Braves swept the uh Pirates, the Kansas City Royals swept the Minnesota Twins, and the Cincinnati Reds were swept by the St. Louis Cardinals. So I think that the biggest surprising sweep from this past week was just the Tigers sweeping the Rays. Just because the Rays are actually at the top of their division, they are in the American League East, and they've been pretty much dominating for the past couple of weeks. And seeing the Tigers who have lost their star pitcher, Tarek Skoble, who I think is actually on rehab assignment. I feel like I just saw him throwing pitches, but he's definitely not playing right now. So for them to still be able to get some good wins and get a sweep against one of the better teams in baseball is really impressive and not really expected. But not so surprisingly, the Brewers sweeping the Rockies and the Braves sweeping the Pirates. We know that the Braves are the best team in baseball right now, and the Brewers are not too far behind. But I do think that the middle of the pack kind of teams have been winning a lot of series lately. Thinking of the Tigers who just swept the Raids, but also thinking of the Orioles, the Royals sweeping the twins and having some pretty good series of late, the Cardinals that are bouncing back. Well, okay, now I'm just spoiling the rest of the episode. So the sneaky team of the week is the Baltimore Orioles. I was very hesitant to call them the sneaky team just because everyone knows that they're my favorite team. But they just won their series versus the Boston Red Sox. And even though they lost their C their series against the Blue Jays this past weekend, their offense, the Orioles' offense, has really been heating up a lot lately. They've been scoring runs, they've been playing good baseball. Those games that they lost over the weekend, they kind of lost them late in the game. So it wasn't that it they just weren't playing very well or anything, which is how it used to be these past couple of months, where they just haven't been playing very clean baseball. They have really been more on top of their game lately, and I can really see them doing pretty well and having a really good June. So they are my sneaky team of the week, my sneaky team forever. Right now, the Orioles are five for five, so they've won five and lost five of their last 10. They're on a two-game losing streak. Like I mentioned, they did just lose their series against the um Toronto Blue Jays. But overall, they've won 31 games and they've lost 35 games, which just puts them right under 500 at 470. And like I said, I really think that they are at a turning point at this point in the season. We're almost halfway, and I think the Orioles are gonna be a team that you really should be looking out for. And now for our temperature check, where we talk about the teams that are heating up and the ones that are cooling down. So we're gonna start with the teams that are cooling down this week. So the Angels are definitely having a bit of a rough patch. Right now, they've won four and lost six of their last 10 games. They won their last game, which was versus the Dodgers, but they did lose that weekend series versus the Dodgers just this past weekend. Right now they have 25 wins and 41 losses, putting them at 379, so very much below 500. And they are currently nine games behind the Seattle Mariners. So remember when I say like games behind, it's referring to how far behind that team is from the team that's at the top of that team's division. So for this example, the Angels are in the American League West, and currently the Seattle Mariners are leading the American League West. And so the Angels are nine games behind the Seattle Mariners, so they would have to win nine games in order to be at the same standing as the Seattle Mariners, but granted, the Mariners would also respectively have to lose nine games. So just going to say that they're pretty far behind the Mariners at this point, which I mean we love that because I'm also a Mariners fan and we love to see them at the top. Um, but the other cooling down team for this week is the Pittsburgh Pirates. So they are currently on a three-game losing streak. They have won five and lost five of their last 10 games. They are 34 wins and 32 losses overall, putting them right above 500 at 515. And they are 7.5 games behind in their division. So if we remember, the Pirates are actually in the National League Central, and so the leader of that is the Milwaukee Brewers, so they are a decent bit behind the Brewers right now, not an impossible feat to catch up to, but behind nonetheless. So the Pirates have been struggling a little bit lately, but like I said, they are still above 500. The other team that is sort of cooling down now are the Cincinnati Reds. They are on a four-game losing streak right now. They were recently swept by the Cardinals, like I mentioned earlier this past weekend. Um, the Reds have won two and lost eight of their last 10. And overall, they've won 31 games and lost 33, which puts them just below 500 at 484. And they are 9.5 games behind the Brewers as well. So the Reds are also in the National League Central. And a few weeks ago, like the National League Central was the hottest division in baseball because all of their teams were above 500. So even though the Reds have now slipped below 500, I still think that the National League Central is the division that you should be the most afraid of because the rest of those teams are still above 500. I mean, even though the Pirates and the Reds, who are both in the National League Central, even though they both I have put them on this cooling down list, they are still teams that are hard to beat in general because they are coming from one of the toughest divisions in baseball right now. And even though historically neither of those teams have been really that much of a contender this year, they have been doing a lot better, their division is doing a lot better, and they're still forces to be reckoned with. Even though uh Cal Raleigh has been on the I. Cal Raleigh is the catcher for the Seattle Mariners, he hit over 60 home runs last season. He's been a very key player on the team. Even without him right now, the team is starting to really pick up and heat up. And I am so proud of them. I'm so excited to see them get better throughout this season and really seeing them take a nice turn for the better this part of the season. The other team that's really starting to heat up again are the St. Louis Cardinals. They are currently on a four-game winning streak. They have won six and lost four of their past ten, and they have won 35 games and lost 28 games overall, putting them over 500 at 556, and they are currently five games behind the Milwaukee Brewers. So the Cardinals are also in the National League Central. And the other team that I wanted to kind of just highlight as heating up, but has always been kind of scorching hot, and the and that is the Atlanta Braves. They are currently on a three-game winning streak. They've won eight and lost two of their past ten. And overall, they have 45 wins and 21 losses, putting them well above 500 at 682. Over the weekend, they swept the Pirates, and during the week they won their series against the Blue Jays. And like I mentioned earlier, they are the hottest team in baseball right now, so they have the best record, and that being that 45 wins and 21 losses, no other team in baseball has a record that high. So even though I have them under heating up, they might as well be just scorching hot. And everyone should be a little afraid when the Braves are coming to town. And for my favorite storyline this week, slash my like favorite statistics. So for the Padres, Fernando Tassies Jr. recently hit his first home run of the season. He's gone 55, he had gone 55 games and 200 at-bats without hitting a home run. And so he finally got his first home run of the season, and it was 451 feet, which was the longest home run he's hit since 2021. And so we are just really hoping that for the Padres's sake, Fernando is back in the game. So hopefully, this is just a really good turning point for Fernando, and we're hoping him and the Padres the best. And for the home run leader board, again, we have Kyle Schwarber right there at the top with 23 home runs. We know Kyle Schwarber is the designated hitter for the Philadelphia Phillies. And then we have Jordan Alvarez, who's the designated hitter hitter for the Astros with 22 home runs, and Minataka Marikami with 20 home runs, and he is the first baseman of the Chicago White Sox. And for my soft take of this week, like I mentioned, there were a lot of unsuspecting teams that were kind of doing a little bit better over this past week, and really just keeping us on our toes. So, really at this point in the season, we're we're seeing the season unfold, and we know there are 162 games in the season, so every team is gonna have their chapter, their time to shine, and really surprise us all, which is really just reflective of life, where you're gonna have good days and bad days, good months and bad months, but you're always gonna have another opportunity to show up and do your best and be that unsuspecting winner of the week and show everyone what you're made of. And I was kind of mentioning it throughout this episode, but I did want to go over the division leaders um as of June 8th. Yeah, today's June 8th, 2026. Um, I want to do a recap of the division leaders at least once a month, and so starting with the American League East, like I mentioned, the Rays are at the top of the division right now. They're actually on a two-game losing streak right now, and they haven't been doing super well. They've only won three and they've lost seven of their past ten. They were recently swept by the Tigers, like I mentioned earlier in this episode, and over the weekend they did lose their series versus the Marlins. But overall, they've won 37 games and lost 25, putting them well above 500 at 597. So even though they've had a bit of a rough go these past couple of games, they are still at the top of their division and still pretty much at the top of all of baseball. And for the AL Central, the Cleveland Guardians are at the top. They lost their last game, but currently they've won five and lost five of their last ten. They are 37 wins and 30 losses overall, putting them at 552. And they recently won their series versus the Yankees throughout this past week. The AL West, like I mentioned, the Mariners are at the top of that division. They have won seven and lost three of their last 10. They lost their last game, but they have 34 wins and 32 losses overall, putting them just above above 500 at 515. The National League East, we know, is ruled by the Braves. The Atlanta Braves are on a three-game winning streak, like I mentioned earlier. They have 45 wins and 21 losses overall. And I already went over their stats a little bit earlier, but just to reiterate that they are the top of their division and the top of baseball. The National League Central is being dominated by the Brewers. So the Brewers have won seven and lost three of their last 10 games. They're currently on a three-game winning streak, and overall they've won 40 games and they've they've lost 23, putting them well above 500 at 635. And finally, the Dodgers are winning in the National League West. They've won six and lost four of their past 10 games. Overall, they've won 42 and lost 24 games, putting them at 636. They lost their last game versus the Angels, but we know that the Dodgers are pretty much dominating their division, and they pretty much always do. And finally, just wanted to go through a couple of games that I'm really excited to watch for this upcoming week. So the week of June 8th through June 14th. So this weekday series I'm excited for is the Mariners versus the Orioles. Um, right as I'm recording this episode, the game is coming on in about an hour, so I'll be editing this episode and watching the game. Honestly, just excited for it because those are my two most favorite teams. Love both of those teams. Not sure who's gonna win. Probably the Mariners, honestly, but who knows? The Orioles might surprise us. And then over the weekend, I'm really interested in seeing the Phillies versus Brewers, just because I feel like that's a very evenly matched kind of game. Um, the Phillies are currently nine and a half games behind the Braves, but they've won seven and lost three of their last 10 games, and they won their last game, which was the weekend series that they won versus the Chicago White Sox. Overall, they have 35 wins and 30 losses, and they're sitting above 500 at 538. Obviously, today is Monday, so we don't know how the rest of this week is gonna go for the Phillies, but we can probably assume that they'll be around the same statistical margins as they are right now. So it'll just be a really interesting game to watch and see if they can take on the National League Central leader in the Milwaukee Brewers. Okay, so that is all that I have for you guys today. Thank you for tuning in. I hope that you've been enjoying my different flavors of episodes. I am still traveling a lot, I'm still in Europe right now. I'm back in Paris for the remainder of this week, and then I'll be going to the Netherlands for work. So next week will not be a recap. I will be going over the all-star games. So almost forgot to mention that the all-star game voting has begun, which is really exciting. I'll I've already recorded an episode that explains how the all-star break works, and so that'll be posting next week. So if you don't really know how it works, then you can listen to that episode or obviously just look it up too. Um, I definitely encourage you to go on to I guess just like mlb.com. I actually don't really know the website, they don't pay me. I don't know the I don't know how to direct you to it exactly. I mean, I have the MLB app, so it just kind of like prompts me to vote. But anyway, you should definitely vote for your favorite players, and they would really appreciate it, I'm sure. And then you can see them hopefully play in the all-star break in July. I believe, oh, I say it in the episode about the all-star break, but I'm pretty sure it starts July 12th. But anyway, it's usually the second week of July, and it lasts about a week, and for one of the days, the American League plays the National League, and it's just a really fun game to watch. So definitely recommend that. Definitely recommend going online and voting for your favorite players so that you can see them play and force them to keep working during with the time that's actually supposed to be a break for them, but you know, it's fine, it's fine. Um, but anyway, thanks for tuning in. I hope that you enjoyed this episode. And if you did, please don't forget to rate and comment. It really helps me out and helps other people discover the show as well. So I hope you guys have a good rest of your week and I'll see you next time. Thank you for joining me in the softest corner of sports media. Bye.