San Francisco Giants: NL West Round-Up

It’s been a busy week as the San Francisco Giants have won what feels like a billion games, and the Dodgers have made their fair share of blunders and great plays. Let’s a take a look at how the last few weeks have gone for the NL West in their hunt for the playoffs.

At the top of the power rankings, we have the San Francisco Giants, who have lost once in over a week of games. They traveled to San Diego and then came home to face the best team in the league, the Chicago Cubs. They then hosted the Padres once again.

The trip down South went well, as the three-headed monster of Madison Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto, and Jeff Samardzija looked fearsome. They each led the way to victories for the Giants and a happy flight back to the Northern half of the state.

Following the trip to San Diego, the Giants welcomed in the juggernaut Chicago Cubs for a short three-game series. Things went about as well as you could hope a series against the best team in baseball could go. The only game they lost was one in which reigning Cy Young winner Jake Arrieta was dominant and former Cy Young winner Jake Peavy was, well, not so dominant.

After that series, the Padres came North to face the Giants for the second time in a week where things didn’t go any better for them. They found ridiculous ways to lose games, from Matt Kemp‘s suspect defense to horrible meltdown innings. In essence, the Giants’ roll could not be slowed by San Diego or Chicago. As of late, the Giants are the hottest team in baseball.

More from San Francisco Giants

• Thank you SF Giants for a fun, wild, surprising 2020 season
• SF Giants lose in heartbreaking fashion and miss 2020 MLB playoffs
• SF Giants: Mike Yastrzemski named 2020 Willie Mac Award recipient
• SF Giants: Chadwick Tromp placed on IL with shoulder strain
• SF Giants: Tuesday’s game against the Seattle Mariners postponed

In second place in the West, the Los Angeles Dodgers have been slowly falling behind thanks to a disappointing span of recent games. They played a home-and-home series with the Angels, and only managed to win one of four games, which was, of course, a gem of an outing by Clayton Kershaw.

The Dodgers then continued their exhausting 30-mile road trip as they added on 130 miles of I-5 traffic to visit the Padres. Things didn’t go as planned, where the heavily favored Dodgers lost two of three games over the weekend.

The worst part of the weekend was the fact that the Dodgers had to wait 37 innings to get that victory in San Diego, as they dropped the first two games before finally taking a victory in the 17th inning of Sunday’s game.

Live Feed

That Balls Outta Here

Once they returned from their trek, the Dodgers were presumably thrilled to be hosting the hapless Reds for the next series. Kershaw dazzled once more, throwing a complete-game shutout. The offense broke out of a slump for another victory the following day, and they are finally heading the right way to try to catch the Giants at the top of the division.

Further down the totem pole, we have the Colorado Rockies. The team is likely missing the sight of the actual Rocky Mountains, as they haven’t been home since May 15th. They’ve been on the road in the midwest and now Boston.

Their road trip hasn’t been a rousing success, as they’ve only won a single game in recent spans against both the Cardinals and Pirates. They were in Boston for an interleague series with the winners of their 2007 World Series matchup-which was a vastly different Rockies roster at the time.

As we continue down to the disappointing bottom on the pile, we come upon the Arizona Diamondbacks, after an ‘evolution’ in team design during the off-season (they added teal).

Needless to say, changing their color scheme and winning the Zach Greinke auction didn’t help to improve the team all that much. The team is five games under .500 on the year, and hasn’t looked impressive in any category or position. Their star Paul Goldschmidt got off to a slow start, but has been steadily improving.

The team as a whole still needs to find an identity, and until they will continue to meddle in the middle of the NL West rankings. On a lighter note, they have done well to improve recently, and have racked up series wins against the Yankees and on the road against the Cardinals in the last week.

Next: Giants Morning Minute: Tomlinson Steals the Show

For the time being, Arizona looks to be safe away from the very bottom, as that honor goes to the San Diego Padres. Most of the Padres and their woes have been covered by the section on the Giants, as San Francisco has swept San Diego three times already in 2016.

The Padres are a young team that doesn’t have the veteran leadership needed to be great just yet, but they do have some good young talent. For now though, the Giants remain hot and at the top of the standings out in the wild NL West.