Subscribe to SI
Give the Gift of SI
Extra MustardSI On CampusFantasyPhoto GalleriesSwimsuitVideoFanNationSI KidsTNT
Back to Baseball Fungoes Blog Homepage
Keep up with the latest news, notes and developments with Fungoes, a daily journal for all things baseball that will last all season long.
9/17/2007 09:16:00 AM

NL West: D'backs In Control

By Jon Weisman

Those Arizona Diamondbacks are wacky, but they're about to have the last laugh.

Sunday in Los Angeles, Arizona starting pitcher Edgar Gonzalez threw 58 pitches but got the victory -- the fewest pitches that any winning starting pitcher in baseball has thrown this season (verified by Baseball-Reference.com.

In fact, the Diamondbacks have three of the five unhardest-working winning starting pitchers on the list. Randy Johnson is No. 2 with 61 pitches on May 30, and Gonzalez is No. 5 with 63 pitches on June 16.

It's all part of a season in which, as has been well-documented by now, Arizona has been outscored but is within .001 of boasting the best record in the National League. As recently as Sunday morning, the Diamondbacks looked like they would finally be heading toward their comeuppance after losing to the Dodgers twice in a row. But a 6-1 victory over Los Angeles moved Arizona much closer to its taste of the postseason since 2002.

The Diamondbacks have a 3 1/2-game lead over the second-place team in the NL wild-card race, Philadelphia, with 12 games to play. As Jack Magruder of the East Valley Tribune wrote, "The Diamondbacks can differ on the importance of their Sunday victory over the Dodgers, but the fact that they could debate the point made their plane ride home so much more palatable."

If any team is going to cast aside the myth that batting average is key to winning championships, it's Arizona. Aside from injured Orlando Hudson, Eric Byrnes is the team's only regular hitting better than .290, and Conor Jackson is the only other batting above .270. The Diamondbacks' team batting average is last in the National League.

But it's not as if they're drawing a lot of walks, either. Arizona is 12th in that category, and last in the NL in on-base percentage.

And they don't really have that much power. The team slugging percentage of .412 is 10th in the NL, and the Diamondbacks' adjusted OPS is a below-average 88.

And the starting pitching isn't even that deep. After Brandon Webb, only one other member of the current rotation, Doug Davis, has an above-average ERA.

But the bullpen is pretty sharp, and Arizona manager Bob Melvin has developed a reputation for deploying his relievers expertly. In the end -- or near the end -- Arizona has simply dodged enough bullets and cashed in enough opportunities to very much control its destiny.



Ever since they fell out of first place in August, the Dodgers have been pushing giant baseballs up a hill, getting close to the top, only to have them roll back down on them. Sunday, Los Angeles was a victory away from closing within 2 1/2 games of Arizona, but a career-high seven walks by newly acquired Esteban Loaiza basically did them in. Loaiza allowed only one hit, but it was a three-run homer by the Diamondbacks' Chris Snyder.

Two games the previous weekend in which the Dodgers allowed San Francisco to win in its last at-bat continue to haunt Los Angeles, especially after San Diego swept the Giants this past weekend to rebuild its lead over the Dodgers in the wild-card race to 2 1/2 games.

It could get worse -- and then too late -- before it gets better for Los Angeles. While the Dodgers travel to Colorado for a three-day, four-game series, their top division rivals will each host teams eliminated from the playoff race: San Diego against Pittsburgh, and Arizona against San Francisco.



As desperate as the Dodgers have become, Colorado is two games worse, trailing San Diego by 4 1/2 games. A 13-0 shutout of Florida on Sunday only came after a potentially devastating winless skein.

"Colorado's downfall during its three-game losing streak (was) its starting pitching," C.J. Moore of MLB.com wrote. "Jeff Francis gave up eight runs in 3 1/3 innings on Thursday in Philadelphia, then Josh Fogg lasted five innings Friday night, but gave up four runs. And (Ubaldo) Jimenez had his second shortest outing of his career Saturday night, lasting only three innings."



San Diego, meanwhile, is sitting relatively pretty. The Padres keep fending off the wild-card challengers, and remain within striking distance of Arizona for the division title. (The distinction is potentially important, because if the wild-card team comes from the NL West, the NL West champion will get to play the champion of the weak NL Central in the first round of the playoffs.)

Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle thinks that the Giants should consider San Diego a role model.

"Two weeks from today, the misery will be over and Giants management can begin the challenging task of building a winning team for 2008," Schulman wrote. "Given their biggest strength, stout young pitching, the Giants' best option might be to photocopy the Padres' master plan."

Barry Bonds, who suffered a sprained toe Saturday and could miss most of this week, may be down to just a few handfuls of at-bats in his momentous Giants career.

Labels:

posted by SI.com | View comments |  

Comments:

Post a Comment
Posted: September 19, 2007 2:44 AM   by Anonymous
Go Dbacks!! Anybody, anytime!!
Post a Comment
Fungoes Blog Homepage
divider line
Search