Climbing the Ladder with the National League 5/18/2008

Interleague play opens for 2008

Interleague play started this weekend, with the AL taking 16 of 27 games Friday and Saturday.

Heading into a series against the Detroit Tigers, the Arizona Diamondbacks bounced back from a sweep by the Chicago Cubs to sweep the Colorado Rockies.

Brandon Webb continued his perfect campaign, improving to 9-0 Thursday.

With the sweep, the Rockies have fallen within half a game of the last-place San Diego Padres, who got bad news when ace Jake Peavy suffered an elbow injury that will make him miss his Monday start.

Peavy seemed invincible until being out-dueled by Webb on April 27. Since then, he has gone 1-2 with a less-than-stellar 5.17 ERA. But this injury is a rare setback for the usually healthy Peavy. Expect him to return and put together a solid season.

The San Francisco Giants are half a game ahead of the Rockies. Their rival Los Angeles Dodgers, two games above .500, are the only team challenging the D’backs for the division.

The Cubs sprinted ahead of the St. Louis Cardinals to the top of the NL Central, winning five seven games this week while the Cards won just two.

The Cubs’ bats are the best in baseball, having scored 251 runs, 17 more than the second-best Diamondbacks.

Alfonso Soriano caught fire this week, capping off six straight multihit games with a 5-for-5, two-homer performance. He finished the week 15-for-28 with seven home runs, increasing his batting average from .233 to .295.

The Cards had a terrible week, being outscored by 14 runs. One has to wonder if they are finally coming down from their month-and-a-half high and whether they simply can’t keep up with the Cubs.

Speaking of the Cubs and the Cards, former Cardinal star Jim Edmonds was cut by the Padres last week after starting the season hitting .178 for the worst offense in baseball.

Edmonds signed with the Cubs for the league minimum and is listed as the starting center fielder but started only once since joining the squad.

If the 38-year-old can bounce back to some semblance of his prime in 2004, he will improve what is already the best offense in baseball. Either way, he’s an eight-time Gold-Glover in center, but he might struggle to mesh with his former rivals.

The Houston Astros experienced a brief reign at no. 2 in what has become the most competitive division in the NL. Lance Berkman’s torrid streak continued with 12 hits, including four long balls to bring his MLB-leading total to 16.

The Pittsburgh Pirates, Cincinnati Reds and Milwaukee Brewers are lurking in the shadows, each five or six games back. The Brewers lost four straight to get there while the Reds won five straight.

The first win was Edinson Volquez’s, and he has been lights-out all season, not allowing more than one earned run in any game. He’ll look to pick up the Reds’ sixth straight win tonight against the Cleveland Indian’s surprising Cliff Lee.

It will be only the third time in MLB history that the NL and AL ERA-leaders have met. The American Leaguer got the better of both previous matchups.

The picture has changed little in the NL East. The Florida Marlins maintain a slight lead over the Philadelphia Phillies, New York Mets and Atlanta Braves, while the Washington Nationals continue their strife at the bottom.

Jayson Werth had a notable game Thursday, hitting three home runs and driving in eight.

The next set of interleague games is in mid-June and will last until almost the end of the month. Perhaps then the NL will put together a few more wins.