The offenses in the National League West aren’t exactly billed as being among the elite in baseball.  In fact division leader San Diego has scored the third fewest runs in the NL, ahead of just Houston and Pittsburgh; San Francisco isn’t much better in terms of runs scored.   It is actually is a rather unfair assessment, as Arizona, LA and Colorado actually have scored more runs than any other NL franchises except for Milwaukee and Philadelphia.

Still it’s pitching that gets the top billing in the west these days.  Only in Arizona has pitching not become the defining factor of what carries a team, and perhaps not surprisingly that’s the reason that Arizona has the second worst record of any team in the league and is the only team in the NL West to be playing less than .500 ball.

Matt Cain's brilliance sometimes gets overlooked in the pitching loaded West.

Photo by artolog, used under creative commons license.

The San Francisco Giants aren’t getting by on unknowns.  They are headlined by two-time Cy Young award winner Tim Lincecum; Jonathan Sanchez who after years of struggling with control seems to have finally got it; the ever reliable Matt Cain; and resurgent ace Barry Zito, who halfway through his contract is finally pitching like the ace that GM Brian Sabean thought he was signing back in in 2007.  The Giants knew they’d be leaning heavily on Lincecum and Cain to keep them in the mix, but Sanchez and Zito have far exceeded expectations.  If the latter two can keep pitching like this into mid June, the Giants may have no option but to dip into their farm system to boost the offense.

Up until last week the Dodgers looked to be hurting when it came to pitching, that’s before they went on a tear -- highlighted by a pitching staff which has posted an ERA of under 1.50 in that span.  That’s been a dynamic correction for a team which was build to rely upon the arms of Clayton Kershaw, Chad Billingsley and Hiroki Kuroda who along with Vicente Padilla were supposed to carry the Dodgers back to the playoffs once again.

But for the Dodgers pitching was meant to be only part of the equation.  This team, despite the soap opera of the McCourt divorce, was built to be balanced with a strong offensive core and dominating pitching to boot.  The offense, up until last week, was the only part of the team working.  Now with both sides contributing, the Dodgers could be poised to make a move.

And while the Dodgers are one of the most threatening teams in the division, the Rockies might well be the favorite to actually win the division.  The Rockies are young, talented, loaded with depth, capable of incredible offensive surges and over the last few seasons have discovered pitching.

It seems impossible that the Rox will ever lead the NL in ERA, but they’ve never had to.  They’ve made the playoffs two of the last three years by just pitching close to the middle of the pack while the offense did the rest.  And this year the team may very well have the best pitching staff they’ve ever put together.  That’s because all of the hard work the farm system had done in figuring out just what kind of pitchers can handle the rarified air of Denver.

Homegrown ace Ubaldo Jimenez is the big man in the rotation, but he’s backed by a solid core including No. 2 man Jorge De La Rosa.  And it doesn’t stop there --  the team has huge upside with the youngster Jhoulys Chacin and the returning former ace Jeff Francis, now a year and a half past his shoulder surgery.  Throw in solid starters Aaron Cook and Jason Hammel and you might well be looking at the team with the greatest pitching depth in the division, and quite possibly the National League.

Yet in this division where pitching rules, it isn’t what a staff looks like on paper that matters but how they preform on the mound.  Right now it’s San Diego that's outperforming everyone.  While the Dodgers and Rockies might look like the biggest threats, and the Giants have the potential to be a major factor, none of them have yet shown that they have what it takes to step to the fore.  In the meanwhile we should enjoy all the pitching duels, the great battles and a division that might well be the strongest overall in the National League.

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