Sportsrageous

The first half of the Major League Baseball season has seen the Pittsburgh Pirates take the division lead, the four-ace rotation of the Philadelphia Phillies dominate opposing hitters and the American League East continue to be baseball’s best division.  In the next few days we’ll look at how each division stacks up to others and what contenders in each division need to do to reach this year’s Fall Classic.

Today we’ll look at the NL West.

Contenders: San Francisco Giants, Arizona Diamondbacks

San Francisco Giants

The defending world champions are essentially playing the same tune they did last year.  Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum continue to be two of the best pitchers in the Majors, and this year the Giants are getting surprisingly good pitching from starter Ryan Vogelsong.  Vogelsong, who has a career ERA of 4.95, has pitched exceptionally well with a record of 7-1 and a team best 2.02 ERA.  The Giants other two starters have been good when they have been healthy.  Jonathan Sanchez has been on the 15-day DL and has looked shaky in rehab starts, but the Giants certainly have the pitching to rival any team.

The Giants hitting has been as problematic as the Angels.  Their run differential is only +18 and third worst among division leaders and with the second best team ERA in baseball, it’s easy to attribute their woes to the offense.  With only a week and a half remaining before the trade deadline, the Giants have already made a deal for Houston Astros infielder Jeff Keppinger, a .305 hitter this year.  If the Giants can add a big bat at the deadline they’ll be in prime position to repeat with their starting pitching and the always entertaining Brian Wilson manning the ninth inning.

Arizona Diamondbacks

One of the surprises of the 2011 season, the Diamondbacks have seemingly come out of nowhere to challenge the Giants for the NL West.  While it seems unlikely they will be able to do so, the D-backs shouldn’t be counted out as they’ve come this far and are only four games back in the NL West and four and a half back in the wild card.  This compared to the 19 games back in the division they were this time last year.

To explain the Diamondbacks resurgence is difficult.  They are scoring plenty of runs, eighth most in all of baseball, but the team’s batting average is relatively low and their pitching ranks 21st in team ERA.  The D-Backs are getting it done on the longball, a dangerous way to live, but similar to the offense that the Yankees employ.  Because of this, for the first time in a while, Arizona will be a buyer at the trading deadline.

What Arizona needs is pitching and what they will get, if anything, is pitching.  It is expected that they will add a reliever and quite possible they could add a starter as well, especially with the addition of Keppinger to the Giants.  According to MLBTradeRumors, Kerry Wood of the Chicago Cubs is high on the Diamondbacks list as are Jason Isringhausen, Todd Coffey and Jason Frasor.  The likelihood that Arizona can acquire a division rival’s starter such as Ubaldo Jimenez is low but that doesn’t mean they won’t try.  If the D-Backs can add some pitching they can make this division race very interesting.