Who Wants to Win a Pennant?...

Congratulations to the Arizona Diamondbacks, who have surfed the wave of a two game winning streak into first place in the NL West.  That's right, your 52-55 Arizona Diamondbacks have zoomed past the San Diego Padres, and if the playoffs started today (which would be totally unfair, actually) they'd be off to St. Louis to face the Cardinals in the Wild Card.

If the NL West were a network sitcom, it would be cancelled.  If it were a politician, it would be impeached.  If it were a cockroach-- well, actually, it may be a cockroach.  Nobody wants to see it, it doesn't do much good for anyone, and you'd just as soon step on it and put the **** thing out if its misery.  How bad is it?  The Pads won 8 times in July, and lost a grand total of 2 games on the Dodgers, and 4 on the Giants.  Only the D-Backs, who cobbled together a *******' 13 win month, managed to make up a bunch of ground.

Really, in what other division could the Giants, at 14 games under .500, make a deadline deal (acquiring Randy Winn from the M's for a clubhouse subscription to FHM), with the idea of making a run at the division... and actually have a chance of making it work?  Pretend for a minute you were one of the teams in the NL East, where nobody is currently under .500.  Never before has every team in a division won more than they've lost.  You're part of history.  Great!  One look out west would make you want to pull a Ron Artest.  It's the NL East in Bizarro World. Omar Minaya must be freaking out.  All that money on Pedro and Beltran?  What they should have done was save their cash and move to Portland.   

Maybe I'm just angry because the Padres, with their fantastic June that set me up to look smart for thinking they'd be good, and set them up to leave the rest of the division in the rear view mirror, have lied to me. 

Even the Royals must be annoyed.  They're actually one game better than the Rockies, but are a full 30 games behind the White Sox in the AL Central.  Colorado, meanwhile, has won barely a third of their games, and if they managed to rip off 9 of 11, 11 of 13 (stop laughing!) they'd be right back in it.  That's just stupid.

But, then again, so is the NL West.