The National League West had a legitmate claim to the toughest division in baseball when the season began. You had the defending world champion Giants and the defending division champion Dodgers, both reloaded and looking like contenders. The Padres had made a ton of moves over the winter and boasted a dangerous lineup on paper. Even the Diamondbacks looked like they could be a player if they got a few breaks. And the Rockies… well, not every team can win the division.
Fast forward to now, and the division is definitely up for grabs; however, it’s not quite the way most thought it would be. Instead of dominant teams fighting it out ’til the end, it seems like nobody really wants to win the NL West. The great race has become a slow jog.
Second Half Favorites
- Rangers charging hard in AL West and wild card races
- The Orioles’ playoff potential is strong
- Checking in with the new and improved Toronto Blue Jays
- D.C. collapse: what brought down the Nationals?
- Who’s the best in the AL West?
- What happened to the Indians this season?
- Are the Minnesota Twins finished?
- The bruised, battered Giants push for the playoffs
- Can the Yankees hang on to a playoff spot?
The Giants are within 1.5 games of the Dodgers, but it’s not because of how they’ve been playing. Fresh off of a 2-5 road trip to St. Louis and Pittsburgh, the Giants return home this week ravaged by injury and hoping to stay close to L.A. until everyone gets healthy. They’re missing Hunter Pence, Joe Panik, and Angel Pagan from the lineup currently, after enduring injuries to Nori Aoki, Mike Leake, and a host of others. San Francisco boasts one of the top offenses in the league when they’re healthy, but scoring runs has been a struggle without so many key pieces. Marlon Byrd is a nice stopgap, but nothing more.
And then there are the surprise contenders: the Diamondbacks, who are suddenly just 5.5 games out of first, and the Padres, who are right behind them at 6.5 out. Arizona has been playing inspired baseball lately and have taken advantage of the other teams’ struggles, putting them in prime position to take the division in September. And the Padres, the team everyone thought should sell at the deadline, have hung around long enough to stay within striking distance. They have three teams to climb over, but the deficeit isn’t that large.
So how will things shake out? It’s a bottleneck right now, but there are signs that some teams have a better shot than others. The Padres, for example, are in it mostly because of how lousy the rest of the division has been playing. They’re under .500 and have their fair share of problems, plus they’ve already started to move parts like Will Venable. It’s not a stretch to see them fading away. And while the Diamondbacks are a good story, they got fat while playing teams like the Reds. Their schedule gets tougher now, and they have a number of division games coming up that will make or break them. Like San Diego, they’re a flawed team.
That leaves the Giants and the Dodgers, the two teams most people thought would be fighting it out when the season began. The Dodgers have the advantage on paper. They’re the stronger team top to bottom, and if they get hot and start playing to their potential they could run away and hide in the division. But they’re letting the Giants hang around, and that’s dangerous. If the Giants get healthy and are still within striking distance of first place (or even in first place), they’re going to be tough to beat. They have the offense to keep up with anyone in baseball when they’re at full strength, and their rotation is solid enough to keep them in games. This race could easily come down to the end of the season.
It’s going to be a fight in the NL West, just like everyone thought it would be. It’s just not the fight that was expected. Teams aren’t exchanging body blows, they’re all playing rope-a-dope. A playoff spot will go to the team that bounces off the ropes first.
