The Brewers' Jake Bauers, right, slides in to score in the fourth inning against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Sunday in Milwaukee. (AP file photo)

CHICAGO — The NL Central has reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes. It has some of the majors’ most promising rookies, like Sal Stewart, Konnor Griffin and JJ Wetherholt. It has young stars like Elly De La Cruz and older ones like Christian Yelich.

Maybe this strong start from all five teams isn’t that big a surprise after all.

“I think it’s a really good division,” Chicago Cubs third baseman Alex Bregman said. “Obviously, good pitching, good offenses, and all the teams have gotten off to a good start. So we know that we’ve got our work cut out for us in this division.”

Headed into Tuesday, the NL Central was the only division in baseball in which every team has a winning record. It’s the second-latest date in a season that every NL Central club has been over .500, according to Sportradar, trailing May 29, 2004, when the division had six teams and each one was 23-22 or better.

The NL Central and NL West each had a composite record of 80-61, followed by the AL East at 73-69. The NL East (64-79), AL Central (66-79) and AL West (66-80) all had losing records as a division.

It’s impressive territory for an NL Central that had four teams among MLB’s 12 smallest payrolls on opening day.

“There are good athletes in the NL Central. The style of play is interesting,” St. Louis Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “You see how collectively they play the game and where their record’s at right now.”

Powered by Cruz and Stewart, the Cincinnati Reds led the way with an 18-10 record. The Cubs were 1 1/2 games back, followed by the Pittsburgh Pirates in third at 16-13. The Cardinals are 15-13, and the Milwaukee Brewers were last with a 14-13 mark.

Milwaukee won the division in 2025 for the third consecutive year. Chicago and Cincinnati also made the playoffs as wild cards.

“We had three teams in the playoffs last year. We were the only division in the National League to have three,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “In previous years, we’ve never had respect. … The (division) has been very good and last year was evidence. This year is not surprising.”

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AP freelance reporters Rich Rovito and Santos Perez contributed to this report.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/mlb