By Steven Booth
You know the vultures are circling when they pick you last in the NL West. You know the fans aren’t overwhelmed with confidence when the team’s owner replied “no” to a reporter’s query about signing your superstar to a contract worthy of his market value.
Take a wild guess about who the hottest team in baseball, and it’s………………….The Padres! Yes the Rays are off to a great start, as are the Twins, The Yankees are looking like the Yankees, but it’s the Padres who have won eight straight going into Sunday. Those Padres, with no power outside of Adrian Gonzales, a bunch of no-names in the starting lineup and the pitching staff, have won eight straight and are chugging along like a brand-new bullett train.
Well, it may be time to start looking at these guys.
The no name pitching staff has an ERA of 2.80. Kevin Corriea ‘s last start was a shutout, and the one before that he shut the other team down for six innings before giving way to the bullpen. Resident veteran Jon Garland has been solid, as have other starters Clayton Richard and Mat Latos. While there is worry about Chris Young’s injury, Wade le Blanc has been stellar in his absence.
Tim Stauffer has six appearances and has yet to give up a run, and while the rest of the bullpen hasn’t exactly been lights out, they’ve been solid enough to help the young starters hold on to leads.
Chase Headley has been the lynchpin on offense, hitting -355 with a .412 on base percentage, and five stolen bases, Gonzales has been his superstar self, whacking four homers with 11 RBI’s and a .327 batting average. Other than decent starts by Nick Hundley and David Eckstein, the rest of the offense hasn’t exactly been killing it, but they’ve scored enough runs to help the fine pitching.
Oh, how irony flourishes in the division. The Padres are winning through their pitching, so far outpacing teams geared for that like the Giants and Rockies, not to mention teams that have been historically based on strong pitching like the Dodgers.
While it is hard to see them sustaining this, you must like the job they’ve done this year. Other payroll-challenged teams like the Royals and Pirates are already in “roll over and play dead mode” but the Padres are playing more like the Twins or Marlins, teams with limited payrolls who figure out ways to win.
The second-place Giants hover like annoying neighbors, only a game out of first. Getting swept by the Padres last week didn’t help things, but being on the verge of sweeping the Cards does help. Barry Zito has been unconscious, striking out ten in eight innings on Saturday. Zito, Tim Lincecum, and Jonathan Sanchez all have ERA’s under two at this point; the only question is having someone who can hit the ball in the lineup. Pablo Sandoval is starting strong, and Juan Uribe is hitting .310, but it’s quite a drop-off after that.
The Dodgers and Rockies, supposedly the top-tier of the division have both been woefully inconsistent. The Rockies starting pitching, said to be their strength, has had its troubles. Ubaldo Jimenez has been fantastic with a no hitter to his name and a 0.95 ERA, but the other starters like Jorge de la Rosa and Aaron Cook will follow good games with bad games and vice-versa. The offense, led by Brad Hawpe, Ian Stewart, and Troy Tulowitski, has been scoring some runs, so perhaps if their starting pitching found it’s groove, or perhaps the humidifier got a tune-up, The Rockies would be back in the mix.
More problematic is the Dodgers. While the offense led by Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier has been hitting out missiles and scoring tons of runs, the pitching staff continues to be horrible. Chad Billingsley looks lost and Vicente Padilla found his way to the disabled list, and the bullpen continues to be a sieve, gas-canning close games in Cincinnati. Clayton Kershaw does seem to be settling in, and Hiroki Kuroda has been decent, but Billingsley needs to get out of his funk, and they need effectiveness from Charlie Haegar and whoever is called up to replace Padilla.
The Diamondbacks are in a swoon. They got swept by the steamrollin’ Padres, had a rough series against the Cards, and now face a rubber game against the Phillies. Their facing a guy with a 7.24 ERA with the so far decent Rodrigo Lopez, so a win today would be huge. Their offense has been predictably bringing the power, led by Mark Reynolds and Kelly Johnson(?) with six homers apiece, but the pitching has not been good. Lopez and Edwin Jackson have been pretty good, but Danny Haren has not. Chad Qualls’s 10+ ERA says everything that needs to be said about their bullpen.
It’s all in the pitching. The Padres’ young arms are coming through for them, as are the San Francisco guys, and that is why they are at the top of the heap of the division thus far. The inconsistency of the Rockies, Dodgers, and Diamondbacks staffs has dragged them all down in the standings, emphasizing the fact that the good pitching will win the division this year.
The Padres are getting fine performances from their pitchers, and their lineup is giving them strong support, ultimately meaning that the vultures will have to look elsewhere to feed, at least for now.
