Climbing the Ladder with the National League 8/17/2008

Central Division continues NL domination

The NL Central has been dominant all season long, and this week was no exception.

The top four teams in the division combined for a 20-7 week with five wins apiece. This means that little has changed in the division title picture, but the wild card is leaning even more heavily toward the contestants from the Central Division.

It’s not that the Central teams are so much better than their coastal counterparts. Pythagorean records would put the Milwaukee Brewers, the St. Louis Cardinals, the New York Mets , the Philadelphia Phillies, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodger s all within three games of each other (and nine to 12 games behind the Chicago Cubs).

This would suggest that the Brewers and the Cardinals are leading the wild card chase because of sheer dumb luck, or a knack for winning close games. Sure enough, the Brewers are 24-11 in one-run games, not to mention a 9-5 extra-inning record.

If luck is the reason, expect the wild card race to tighten up down the stretch.

But if C.C. Sabathia has anything to say about it, luck has nothing to do with it. Wednesday he improved to 7-0 with a 1.55 ERA and 60 strikeouts to 13 walks since first donning the Brewers uniform.

This just in: Brandon Webb is back. He won two more games this week to improve to 18-4. That puts him on pace for 24 wins, the most for any NL pitcher since Steve Carlton won 27 in 1972.

And as Webb goes, so go the Diamondbacks. During his 9-0 start to the season, the D’backs were 27-15. While Webb struggled through a 2-4 stretch, his team posted a 13-25 record. Now, during his 7-0 streak, they are 24-19.

With that, they’ve climbed to five games above .500, a mark they haven’t seen since mid-June.

Still, the Dodgers trail by only one game. After hovering under .500 for most of the season, they reached a season-high water mark of four games over .500 on Friday.

It would seem that the D’backs and the Dodgers are finally leaving the rest of the division in the dust.

The Diamondbacks have a slight advantage in the upcoming week, facing off with the 48-75 San Diego Padres and the 64-60 Florida Marlins while the Dodgers square off against the 56-69 Colorado Rockies and the 65-58 Phillies.

In the past ten games, the Phillies lost their three-game cushion over the Mets and are now two games back in the NL East.

The Mets took advantage of a weak August schedule, winning nine of 12 games against the Padres, the Marlins, the Washington Nationals and the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Phillies, meanwhile have an important homestand coming up, hosting the Nationals, the Dodgers and the Mets before heading out to Chicago for a four-game set. Their play to close out August will set the tone for the division race.

The question is, can the Marlins remain competitive as they drop in the NL East standings? Their record is four games better than their Pythagorean record, and that’s finally starting to catch up with them. It will likely be a two-horse race come September.

Meanwhile, the Nats have lost nine in a row and could make it 16 with trips to Philly and Chicago on the horizon.

While the Cubs have a relatively comfortable lead in the Central Division, the next two weeks to close August will be critical in determining the roles of leaders and chasers in the coastal division races. Look for the Mets and the D’backs to pull ahead of their foes.