We are about 20 games into the 2025 Major League Baseball season now, so even teams like the Braves – who had a terrible start – can still dream of World Series success. In such a long season, there is still plenty of time to turn things around and for a team to position itself as a championship contender.

This year, we have already seen that the NL West is going to provide some of the best teams, with the Padres, Dodgers, and Giants all beginning strongly. The best MLB betting sites will be offering them as some of the favorites to go all the way, even with around 140 games still to play.

The 1982 Braves, 1987 Brewers, and the 2023 Rays all hold the record for the most consecutive wins to open a season. But we thought we would take a look at some of the teams who had the best record throughout history at around this stage of the season – and how they ended up after such a hot start.

1911 Detroit Tigers

All of these teams raced out of the gate, winning 18 of their first 20 games and the 1911 Tigers were fortunate to have two of the best players in the American League, in Ty Cobb and Sam Crawford. Detroit continued its fine start to the year by winning 59 of its first 83 games – but then the wheels started to fall off.

The Tigers failed to hit 0.500 for the rest of the year and finished the regular season in second place with an 89-65 record after losing 20 out of 30 games in July. In those days it was only the winners of the two leagues that progressed to the postseason, with the Philadelphia Athletics – the AL champs – ultimately winning the World Series.

1918 New York Giants

World War 1 shortened the 1918 regular season, with all men with “non-essential” jobs required to enlist or take war-related employment. The 1918 Giants had raced to an 18-2 start but had already fallen away by June, with the season finishing early a month later. Teams ended up playing anywhere between 120 and 130 games, instead of the usual 154.

The Giants had lost the World Series to the Chicago White Sox the year before but would lose out in the race to the National League pennant to the other Windy City team, the Cubs, in 1918. It would be another four years before this New York team tasted success again, proving that an impressive April doesn’t always mean a successful season.

1955 Brooklyn Dodgers

This was the year that the Dodgers finally lived up to their potential, beating the Yankees in the World Series to claim the team’s only championship while it called Brooklyn home. As opposed to the two previous examples, the 1955 Dodgers kicked on from its 18-2 start to take the National League pennant, 13.5 games ahead of the Brewers.

Everything clicked for this team, with Roy Campanella winning the NL MVP award, and Duke Snider leading the league in runs batted in. Veterans Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese both contributed and the stage was set for an all-New York World Series. The championship series games all went with the home team until the decider at Yankee Stadium, where the Dodgers scored two unanswered runs to claim the title.

1984 Detroit Tigers

It was almost another 30 years after that historic Dodgers World Series triumph that any team started so brightly again, with the 1984 Detroit Tigers never trailing in the AL West throughout the season. In fact, this Tigers team won 35 of its opening 40 games and claimed the divisional title with 104 wins to its name.

The likes of Alan Trammell and Chet Lemon led the offense, while Jack Morris pitched at an incredibly high level all year. He saved his best for the World Series, though. After sweeping Kansas City in the ALCS, Morris pitched two complete-game wins in the championship series against San Diego. Willie Hernandez then took two saves and won the AL MVP award, as well as the World Series for Detroit.

1987 Milwaukee Brewers

Our final 18-2 starters were nowhere near as successful as the Tigers or Dodgers. Just three years after that Detroit super-season, the Brewers raced off to a similarly hot start but everything had gone wrong by the time May came around. It was a year that saw Juan Nieves record the first-ever Brewers no-hitter and Paul Molitor put together a 39-game hit streak – but the team wouldn’t even make the postseason.

Milwaukee won its first 13 games of the year but soon came down to Earth with a bump, losing the next 12 straight. With the heady days of April quickly forgotten, the Brewers finished the season with a 91-71 record, down in third place in the AL East, behind both the Tigers and the Blue Jays. Even a fairly successful September could not save a season that had promised so much early on.

Come Back in the Summer

As some of these stories prove, a blistering start to a season does not necessarily mean that a team will finish with a championship or even a league pennant. There have been some success stories down through the years, but it is always better to wait to see how the divisions look by the time the end of the summer comes around.

By: Chris Bates