"Better" is probably the wrong term here, but several things would need to go right for them to be around .500 when all is said and done.
Glass half-full vs. half-empty argument. Find ANY metric that had the team 7-5 vs. expected playoff contenders (and many pundits' darkhorse in Philadelphia) at this point and you'll have found something. No one can argue the fact that they've outperformed expectations thus far, and they've done so with no Gohara, Soroka, Acuna, and Camargo.
Pretty tough to give someone a hard time for being a little optimistic when they've played like this AND have obvious upgrades on the verge of being added without having to go outside the organization.
Sure, that would be a pleasant surprise as you mention - but it's not exactly like it's out of the question either.
I mean, it's 12 games. Would anyone have projected this? I doubt it. Would anyone be surprised by it? No. Because it's baseball.