MLB Notebook: NL West Memorial Day Report

Sports Scribe Blog

The NL West has the defending champs, four teams firmly in the playoff race, and a fifth team well on its way to the worst year in the history of Major League Baseball. We conclude our Memorial Day tour with a look-in on this division:

LA Dodgers
Preseason Over/Under: 104.5
Current Pace: 98
That the Dodgers are playing below expectations is more a reflection of what those expectations are than anything the baseball team is doing. But they do have a problem with their pitching. There are injuries in both the rotation and the bullpen. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, with a 1.86 ERA in his ten starts, is the only arm that’s pitching well. Offensively, Mookie Betts and Max Muncy haven’t started to hit yet.

But manager Dave Roberts has been here before with the pitching. He’s consistently squeezed the most out of a rag-doll staff. This will be an issue when we start doing postseason evaluations, but not before then. Mookie and Max will produce. And in the meantime, Shohei Ohtani is tearing it up again, with a stat line of .388 on-base percentage/.638 slugging percentage. Freddie Freeman has picked up where he left off in the World Series and has a stat line of .427/.636. Will Smith is behind the plate and his numbers are .446/.485. Los Angeles is scoring the second-most runs in the National League, they have the pedigree, and they aren’t going anywhere.

San Francisco
Preseason Over/Under: 79.5
Current Pace: 95
The Giants’ surprising rise into contention has been keyed by the National League’s second-best pitching staff, and that staff is in turn keyed by the NL’s most lights-out bullpen. Hayden Bridsong, Kyle Rogers, and Camilio Doval give manager Bob Melvin plenty to work with when he has a lead late in the game. Logan Webb and Robbie Ray are both pitching well in the rotation, and Heliot Ramos is having a nice all-around season in left field, with a .345/.472 stat line.

San Francisco is going to need more starting pitching, as rotation ERA ranks just ninth in the NL. Webb and Ray can only carry them so far. While Wilmer Flores’ ten homers have been great, it’s highly unlikely Wilmer is going to be a 30-HR guy at the end of the season. The Giants need more offensively from LaMonte Wade, Matt Chapman and Willy Adames if they’re going to keep winning. The good news? It’s a realistic expectation for all three of those players to pick up the pace.

San Diego
Preseason Over/Under: 85.5
Current Pace: 92
Michael King and Nick Pivetta each have ERAs in the 2s and have keyed a rotation that fuels the Padres’ success. The bullpen is pretty good in its own right, led by strong years from Jason Adams and Robert Suarez at the end of the line. Offensively, San Diego is getting good all-around production from Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado, Jackson Merrill, and Jake Cronenworth. The Pads are getting additional power from Gavin Sheets and his 10 homers.

But all those players hitting well isn’t translating where it counts—in runs scored, where San Diego is just 11^th in the National League. Maybe it’s bad luck. Or maybe they need more from Luis Arraez, who has just a .318 OBP and a comparatively low (by his standards) batting average of .284. Xander Bogaerts is struggling at the plate. The offense needs to get figured out, as the Padres are starting to get nicked up in the rotation, with King and Darvish both dealing with nagging injuries.

Arizona
Preseason Over/Under: 86.5
Current Pace: 80
The Diamondbacks’ disappointing start can be charged to poor pitching, both starting and in the bullpen. Corbin Burnes has done his job, with a 2.73 ERA as the staff ace. Merrill Kelly and Brandon Pfaadt have at least been respectable. But between the back end of the rotation and then in the relief corps, there are problems. Getting Eduardo Rodriguez healthy and productive would fix at least the issue with the starters.

If the pitching can at least become league-average, the bats can pick up the slack. Ketel Marte is the best second baseman in baseball. Geraldo Perdomo has a .401 OBP. Eugenio Suarez has hit 14 homers. And Corbin Carroll appears to have moved beyond his sophomore slump, with a .337/.566 stat line.

Colorado
Preseason Over/Under: 59.5
Current Pace: 28
Let’s talk about Jake Bird. The relief pitcher has a 1.72 ERA. We’re talking about Bird because we want to at least say something nice about this utterly atrocious baseball team. Bird has pitched 31 innings already (the most-used relievers are generally in the low 20s for IP at this point), so who knows long it will last. But he’s the light in the darkness in Denver.

If we want to pinpoint a culprit for this historic ineptitude, we can look at the three starting pitchers of Kyle Freeland, Antonio Sentzatela and German Marquez. They were supposed to give the Rockies’ three respectable arms to build a rotation on. Instead, they have ERAs with numbers like 5,6, and 7 at the beginning. And Kris Bryant? On the 60-day IL with a back problem, continuing the career collapse that began when he left the Cubs.

CONCLUSION
History tells us the Dodgers will eventually pull away. How the Giants, Padres, and Diamondbacks shake out in the playoff race will be interesting. Given how often the Rockies will play all of these teams, whether Colorado can play well enough to steal even a few wins from the contenders could shape how the wild-card picture looks.