It wasn’t so long ago, folks, that the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies were facing each other in the NLCS for the right to play the Boston Red Sox in the World Series.  In fact, just seven months ago, these two teams (along with the Phillies) were being hailed the prizes of the National League, full of youth, talent, and excitement.  As the 2008 season has unfolded, however, both these teams have stumbled.  But the struggles haven’t remained within the two organizations; the Dodgers and Padres have both played well below expectations and the San Francisco Giants are, by my considerations, the only team exceeding expectations.  So why is this?

Arizona Diamondbacks. Lets start with the division leaders (barely), the Diamondbacks.  Floating at an even .500 mark of 40-40, the Diamondbacks lead the piss-poor division despite winning just 9 of their last 24 games in the month of June.  Brandon Webb and Dan Haren have both been fantastic, leading 11-4 and 8-4 records respectively and captaining the rotation ahead of the Big Unit, Micah Owings, and Doug Davis.  Everyone has been on Micah Owings jock for his ability to hit…but I’m on his ass for his lackluster pitching performance this year.  Owings ERA is north of five and you have to go back to May 25th for a start in which he allowed less than three runs, May 14th for a start in which he didn’t allow a run.

The essence of their success last year, timely hitting, has been lacking this season.  Super-talent Justin Upton has struggled since his incredible start to the year.  Eric Byrnes, the catalyst for much of the Diamondbacks offense, has struggled this year, having his average dip to .210 since coming off an injury in which he tore both of his quad muscles.  How is that even possible?  Anyways, Byrnes was hitting a whopping 100 points higher last season at this point.  Don’t get too caught up in Chris Young’s power numbers; he’s hitting a dismal .230 and his OBP of .300 is concerning, especially for a leadoff hitter. Read the rest of this entry »

Promising Youth Set to Bring Back Dodger Glory. This is what Dodgers fans around the country have been waiting for. The massive influx of young talent is now Major League ready. Now, with a certain Hall of Famer calling the shots, Azul appears set on getting back into the postseason…and actually winning a series for the first time since the 1988 World Series.

Bats. One of the biggest stories of Los Angeles’ offseason was the status of leadoff hitter and $44 million man. In regards to Pierre, there’s two types of people. There’s the people that love his effort, durability and speed. On the other hand, there’s the group of people that hate his lack of power, arm and anemic on base percentage. It appears Joe Torre falls into the second camp. Pierre’s consecutive games streak is already snapped and he should lose at-bats to promising Andre Ethier all season.

The Dodgers’ lineup is a mix of old and young. Starting with the veterans, it’s time for 2nd baseman Jeff Kent to stop being the racist prick he is and start serving as a mentor to Los Angeles’ younger players. Despite a clubhouse demeanor that would make Stalin blush, Porn ‘Stache can still swing it, as displayed by his .302-20-79 line in 2007. His middle infield mate, Rafael Furcal, is still among the game’s best. The career .285 hitter has plenty of speed and for some reason, never hit leadoff for Grady Little despite owning Juan Pierre in the OBP department. Read the rest of this entry »

Hosts: Sonny, Ryan and Rich: This episode focused entirely on the National League West. With the hiring of former Yankees skipper Joe Torre, are the Dodgers ready for their youth movement to finally make a playoff run? Or will Brandon Webb’s Arizona Diamondbacks repeat? Can the Colorado Rockies continue their magical run of 2007? And can Jake Peavy and Chris Young carry the Padres back into the postseason? All of this and more on the Sportable Spot.

Note: We’ve recorded our podcasts for the AL Central and AL East. They will be posted in a few days after we complete the NL West team previews.

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A day after the Dodgers completed a three game sweep of the NL East leading Mets, they fired their hitting coach and member of the 3,000 hit club Eddie Murray. Azul canning Murray came on the heels of a series where the Dodgers banged out 31 hits and 18 runs, including a back to back to back home run performance on Tuesday night that was topped off with pitcher Hung-Chih Kuo showboating his way out of the box.

Like many things the Dodgers do, I have to question this move for a few reasons. The first question I have regards the timing of this move. On top of the sweep of the Mets, the Dodgers find themselves in a heated race atop the NL West with the Padres and Diamondbacks. It’s not like this team is tanking and is seven or eight games out and can’t hit the damn ball. What message does this send to the players on the team? “Way to be out there guys, nice sweep. See ya hitting coach, you’re fired.”

Another issue I have with this is the production that Murray has gotten out of some of his players, namely the rookies and youngsters, this season. Look at Russell Martin for example. Martin, who since taking over the catching role last season has caught more games than any other catcher in baseball, is a hitting machine right now. He’s vaulting himself into an elite player with a special mix of defensive talent and offensive power. It’s not Murray’s fault that Nomar is a poon tang and only has one home run. Murray’s job is to teach hitting, not to produce power. That’s where it’s the hitters fault, not the coaches.

Murray is being replaced by Bill Mueller, a former third baseman, AL batting champ, and douchebag who joined the Dodgers as an adviser for the season. Whether or not this changing of the guard will work is something that we won’t find out for another few weeks. For the Dodgers sake lets just hope they didn’t try and fix something that wasn’t broken.

Before the season, if you would have predicted Major League Baseball’s strongest division, you probably would have answered the American League East, while giving some serious consideration into the AL/NL Central. All three of those are being outdone by a laughing-stock of the past couple years, the National League West.

San Diego: 34-23
Arizona: 35-24
Los Angeles: 34-24

In our preseason previews of these three teams, we emphasized their pitching staffs. You can make the case for any of these teams having the best pitching in baseball. Most people would take the side of the first place Padres in that argument. After all, they boast the top two pitchers in the National League in NL Pitcher of the Month Jake Peavy and underrated Chris Young. The Padres’ pitching staff has compiled a 2.94 ERA, which leads the entire league by a mere .39.

With the Giants and Rockies just a couple of games under .500, you have to make the case for this division being the best in baseball. No other division has two teams that are ten games over .500. The National League West has three teams. It’s a deep division with absolutely filthy pitching staffs. Even the 4th place Giants have two of the game’s future Cy Young contenders in Matt Cain and Todd Lincecum. These clubs won’t be in the spotlight on ESPN but they’re all worth taking a look at.

Brad Penny had an absolutely dominating performance last night. He shut down the Florida Marlins and struck out 14 batters. He allowed only five hits over seven shutout innings, and put together arguably his best performance of the year.

There’s only a minor problem for Penny. During one of those seven shutout innings he forgot to zip his fly back up, leading to the slightly embarrassing picture shown here. I don’t know if he went to the bathroom and just forgot to zip up, or if his zipper just stopped working. Regardless of what happened, Penny is now going to get a hard time for the rest of the year. I can just imagine him walking up to the top step of the dugout to head out to pitch and being constantly reminded to check his zipper. I thought that was a lesson we all learned in about 1st grade. I guess we all make mistakes sometimes.