If we're being honest, all of us have a love-hate relationship with baseball.

It's a long season, so frustrations grow with poor trends. Excitement comes from the everyday guarantee of having some part of the game to consume.

The first 40 games of the season is past us, giving plenty of food for thought. We have a decent sense for the good teams across MLB, while evaluating individual player performance is still a bit tricky.

Since every month of each season is different, there is already plenty to love and hate so far about this 2024 season campaign.

We will keep it to four of each here, diving into some of the more interesting storylines we have at this point.

Love: How the AL Central Flipped

It was just three years ago in 2021 when the Chicago White Sox were the only good team in this division. They won it by a convincing 13-game margin with an impressive +160 run differential.

They were the only team in the division that year with a record above .500, or a positive run differential.

The script has completely flipped. Now the White Sox, the game's worst team by a mile, is the only bad one in the division.

The Cleveland Guardians somehow have the best record in the AL along with the Baltimore Orioles. The Kansas City Royals are just 1.5 games behind, but with a better run differential. The Royals and Detroit Tigers actually round out the AL Wild Card race behind the New York Yankees. That's right, three teams—with the Minnesota Twins just 0.5 games behind Detroit—would make the playoffs if the season ended today.

Making this division a punching bag made sense before, but it should be taken seriously today. Aside from the White Sox, all of them have done an honorable job of team-building. The Royals are a particularly feel-good story one year after losing 106 games.

Hate: Mike Trout's Health

Every season Trout is limited, it feels like baseball fans are cheated. As The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal points out, Trout missed more games than he played from 2021 to 2023.

Now he's expected to miss another 8 to 12 weeks with a torn meniscus in his left knee. It likely takes him out of the equation for trade deadline discussions, which he has not been inclined to entertain in the past.

It amounts to another wasted season for the Angels, who really needed Trout healthy in their first post-Shohei Ohtani season. They needed the reminder of the star power of an established all-time great like Trout, who seemed pretty close to his old self through 109 at-bats.

Trout already hit 10 home runs, which ties the major league lead as of Thursday, and he's slugging .541. Yet the Angels are well below .500 with no clear path to improvement.

Trout deserves better. Baseball deserves better. Angels fans deserve better.

Love: Boston Red Sox Rotation

It seemed like Boston's plans went up in smoke when Lucas Giolito underwent elbow surgery before Opening Day.

Giolito, the Red Sox' top free agent acquisition in the offseason, was supposed to compete for the Opening Day starter spot. Instead, he needed surgery to repair a partially UCL and the outlook on the Red Sox shifted.

They were the AL East's only losing team a season ago and without their greatest reinforcement in Giolito, it was hard to see them fitting toward the top of such a competitive division. It's not just Giolito. Boston starters Nick Pivetta, Brayan Bello and Garrett Whitlock are also out with injuries.

Nevermind any of that, though. The Red Sox hold the lowest team ERA through their first 32 games.

Only the Seattle Mariners have a better WHIP and Boston's opposing batting average ranks sixth in baseball. The Red Sox are doing this despite their pitchers being middle of the road in strikeouts.

It is fascinating to watch them thrive against the odds.

Kutter Crawford has a 1.56 ERA in 40.1 innings. Tanner Houck has a 1.60 ERA in one less inning. Nobody saw this coming. Is regression on the horizon?

Hate: Aaron Judge's Struggles

Judge has been bad enough for media members to start asking about lineup changes and moving him in the order.

Anything to get him out of the rut where he's hitting below .200. The Yankees' offense continues to have a feast or famine quality to it and Judge's performance is a big part of it.

While the Yankees have maintained a winning record even with his struggles, it stands to reason they would have the best AL record if he were performing closer to the past two seasons before his toe injury derailed 2023.

Whether you love or hate the Yankees, they are more compelling when Judge is hitting bombs and playing like one of the game's greats. He does have six homers, but that pairs with 40 strikeouts, which is second-worst in the AL.

Part of the intrigue of trading for Juan Soto was pairing a prolific left-handed hitter with Judge, his counterpart from the right side.

It's a shame he hasn't been able to hold up his end of the deal so far. As long as injuries aren't the cause, expect him to heat up along with the spring weather.

The Yankees are off to a great start, but they'll only go as far as Judge and Soto can take them.

Love: Shōta Imanaga's Dominance

Through his first six MLB starts, Imanaga is the game's best pitcher. His ERA is 0.78, which leads the major leagues.

Imanaga has allowed just three earned runs across 34.2 innings.

He is third in WHIP (0.75) and holds a 5-0 record for the Chicago Cubs, who have won all six of his starts and hold the NL's second Wild Card spot. Imanaga's opponents' batting average is .172, which ranks 10th.

The Cubs certainly had high hopes for Imanaga when they signed him to a four-year, $53 million contract in the offseason. They would be lying if they said this was the expectation.

Had it been, the Cubs would have paid him more. Perhaps not the 12-year, $325 million deal the Los Angeles Dodgers gave fellow Japanese star Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but certainly more than $53 million over four years.

It is the best case scenario for the North Siders after losing ace Justin Steele to a hamstring injury on Opening Day.

Hate: Yoshinobu Yamamoto's Debut Overshadowing His Season

For as great as Imanaga has been for the Cubs, the very start to Yamamoto's MLB career was underwhelming. He lasted just one inning while allowing five runs to the San Diego Padres in the South Korea series.

Aside from his first outing, the Dodgers rookie has actually been good. His ERA through the last six starts is 1.64 with 10.9 strikeouts per nine innings. It would be inaccurate and unfair to say that he's been a bust.

Yamamoto's streak of 15 straight scoreless innings speaks for itself. This is a top end big league starter as the scouting report suggests.

Yet it has not quite felt like the dominance you would expect for a sight-unseen 12-year, $325 million. That's more like what Imanaga is doing for the Cubs and for way less money.

It's difficult, but not impossible, to live up to sky-high expectations, or recover from such a high profile flop in a debut. If he continues to pitch like this, that debut will be a distant memory.

But for now, his first inning is still more famous than the 33 he's pitched since. Let's see where things stand with Yamamoto at the All-Star break and if he'll be playing in Atlanta alongside Imanaga. Right now, odds are they'll both be there.

Love: Atlanta's Success, Despite Stars' Struggles

You can't accuse this Atlanta team of being top heavy. As expected, it leads a scrappy NL East, with the Philadelphia Phillies right on its heels.

Unexpected are the slow starts from stars like Ronald Acuña, Austin Riley and Matt Olson.

You have to go past the names of Marcell Ozuna, Travis d'Arnaud, Ozzie Albies and Michael Harris II on Atlanta's top wRC+ list before finding the main trio.

Even newcomer Jarred Kelenic has a higher OPS than any of them. Olson was the only one of the star trio with a 100 OPS+. The rest of them are below it.

Acuña's struggles stand out especially considering the historic NL MVP season he had in 2023. He has a .689 OPS with just one home run through 115 at-bats. He had five home runs and hit .352 through his first 113 at-bats last season.

It hasn't stopped Atlanta from holding the NL's best record, which means the offense will be unstoppable once their core turns it on. The shaky rotation may be what keeps the Phillies in the mix all season long.

Hate: Houston Astros' Regression

The Astros being a contender had become one of the most reliable things in baseball for the last seven seasons.

They are yearly ALCS participants and usually a safe bet to win the pennant.

That's no longer the case. They look old, oddly managed and pedestrian. The schedule turned in their favor last weekend facing the Colorado Rockies in Mexico City.

They swept the two-game series, but probably because they were playing one of the few teams worse than their own. Then they won two-of-three against the AL leading Cleveland Guardians this week upon returning to Houston. Perhaps it's the first sign of a turnaround. But with the rotation still so banged up and José Abreu demoted, FanGraphs has dropped their playoff odds down to 47.5 percent. It was in the 80's before the season started. No team has had their odds drop more in the first month.

Of the teams with losing records, Houston does have the best run differential of them all. But it's still not good (-16) and neither is this team anymore. Whispers around trades for veterans like Alex Bregman, Justin Verlander and maybe even Kyle Tucker will grow louder without a serious win-streak on the horizon.