Hang On, NL West May Be Slumpy Ride

Was the beleaguered manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks characterizing the play of his beleaguered team or the downtrodden division in which it competes?

It was a few days ago, as May turned to June and the National League West prepared for the competitive flames of a schedule about to turn from intra-division to interleague, that Bob Brenly paused, the speculative ax over his head, and said:

“We’re caught in a vortex right now, and it’s just sucking us right down.”

With decency restrictions preventing his colorful but indelicate comments from being reprinted in totality, this was Brenly’s attempt to capture the spiraling descent of the Diamondbacks, although he could also have been describing a division in which even a 21-33 record entering the weekend doesn’t guarantee early elimination.

As he pointed out:

“If there was ever a good division to be in and be playing the way we’ve been to this point, it’s the National League West this year.

“It’s still very wide open, and we feel like if we start putting some wins together and start winning some series and keep grinding, then anything can happen.”

Well, Curt Schilling now pitches for the Boston Red Sox and Richie Sexson is sidelined for the year after the Diamondbacks traded six players for him, but who knows?

Weren’t the Dodgers about ready to sell playoff tickets before losing eight in a row and 12 of 14?

Weren’t the San Francisco Giants headed only for a long summer of tabulating Barry Bonds’ 812 intentional walks before winning 10 in a row?

Weren’t the San Diego Padres in position to dust off the Dodgers and Giants in May if they could only hit in their new $480-million ballpark, where they lost five in a row before defeating the Colorado Rockies, 2-1, on Wednesday and where the team batting average is almost 60 points lower than it is on the road?

Has the West cycled into the Worst, which can happen at times in any division in which the New York Yankees and Red Sox aren’t trying to outspend each other?

“I’ll let other people put their own description on it,” Ned Colletti, assistant general manager of the Giants, said of the West.

“There’s a lot more parity to the payrolls and personnel. No team is head and shoulders above the rest. All have flaws and areas of concern, and that can lead to streaks of both kinds, as we’ve seen already.”

Said Dodger catcher Paul Lo Duca:

“Everybody says the division is down, and maybe it’s not as strong as it’s been, but it’s still early and I think it’s better than a lot of people say. Arizona has had injuries, Colorado has had injuries [Preston Wilson and Larry Walker]. Obviously, the Central is a strong division, but let’s see how it plays out over the season.

“We had our chance to open up some distance over the entire division, but that eight-game losing streak really hurt. Split those games and we’re up four more games over the Giants. Now we’ve let them back in it.

“That’s our own doing, but we’re fortunate to be where we’re at too, given that we went 2-12 at one point, so you can look at it two ways.

“I just think it’s going to be a dogfight until the end. We play each other too many times for it not to be.”

Of course, it might come down to which West team, if any, pays the price for Carlos Beltran or Freddy Garcia when they are traded in July (or earlier) and which plays best outside the division.

At this point, only the Giants (16-14) and Padres (16-12) have a winning edge against the Central and East, and the West’s cumulative record of 68-83 against the 11 other teams underscores the negative view of the division.

Then again, as Colletti said in citing San Francisco’s recent division dominance, “it doesn’t matter if you get to the playoffs in an old Chevy or a new Mercedes, you just want to get there.

“We had the best record in baseball in 2000 and lost to the [New York] Mets in four games in the playoffs. We won 100 games last year and lost in four games to the [Florida] Marlins.

“The year we got the farthest [Game 7 of the World Series in 2002] was as a wild card, and we ended up losing to a wild card [the Angels].”

In the revolving interleague schedule, 2004 pits NL West vs. American League East, and the Dodgers have the toughest slate.

Each of their four division rivals gets a three-game series with Tampa Bay’s Not So Devilish Rays. The Dodgers have no such breather. They play three games in Arizona this weekend, then 25 in a row against the Toronto Blue Jays, Red Sox, Baltimore Orioles, Yankees, Giants and Angels.

“It’s going to be tight,” Lo Duca said. “We have a tough month ahead, and we have to get back to where we were early in the year. We have to start playing better than we have been. We have our work cut out, but we’re excited to be going to Boston and to have the Yankees coming here.

“We’re still basically a young team, and it’s a chance to see where we’re at. If we come out of this in a positive way it can only enhance the belief that we can get it done this year.”

It was in March that Padre General Manager Kevin Towers cited the parity in a division in which his was the only team to take on payroll (could it be that Frank McCourt now regrets not biting the financial bullet with Vladimir Guerrero?) and said he couldn’t see any of the five winning more than 85 games, although his goal for the Padres was 89.

In the first week of June, the Padre pace projects to 89 wins, but the Dodgers are working toward 90. Of course, none of that means anything at this point. There are no magical numbers in a division in which every team has flaws and areas of concern, and Bob Brenly -- the former broadcaster and wordsmith -- has a unique way of capturing it all.