CINCINNATI — The Reds are off to their best start since 1995, the last time they reached the NL championship series. They’ve had the second-best record in the league most of the season, winning more than 60 percent of the time. It’s quite a start by any measure.

So, why isn’t Dusty Baker more content?

“It doesn’t even seem like we’re playing .600 ball,” the Reds manager said. “Most of the time, you know when you’re playing .600 ball. But it doesn’t seem like it. It seems like we’ve been struggling some.”

Forgive him. That’s what it’s like this year in the NL Central, where you can be one of baseball’s best and still find yourself needing to make up ground in the standings.

The Central is already sizzlin’ as summer officially starts. Heading into the weekend, the top three teams in the NL were all in that single division — St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh. All had winning percentages of at least .600. And it’s been a long, long time since one division so dominated the National League at this point in a season.

The last time three teams in the same NL division had .600 records heading into June was 1977, when the Cubs, Cardinals and Pirates were atop the East, according to STATS. This is only the 10th time since Major League Baseball split into four divisions in 1969 that one division had so many good teams in June.

And it’s only the second time since baseball went to six divisions in 1994 that one of them had three .600 teams in June, STATS research shows. The AL East had three hot teams in June 2010. Adding that extra division to each league made it much less likely that so many good teams would be concentrated in one place.

But here they are, clumped together atop the NL Central.

“I’m not sure what to make of it, I really don’t, but I know it’s piqued a lot of people’s curiosity,” Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said. “I’ve gotten calls from a lot of old friends from Texas and Colorado asking about it. It’s drawn the attention of people around the game.”

The Pirates, in many ways the biggest surprise in the trio. Their solid start has sparked hope that one of the longest streaks of futility in professional sports history might be finally coming to an end.

Of course, Pittsburgh fans were thinking the same thing last July when the Pirates moved into a tie for first place. They were 16 games over .500 in August, but fell apart down the stretch and finished with their 20th straight losing record.

If the Pirates can keep it up this time, they’ll bust “The Streak” and set up a lot of autumn drama in baseball’s hot-as-summer division.