*1. CUBS (1) - Someone needs to tell the Cubs - who have now dropped five straight - that it’s not October yet. Oh, and Zambrano has tendonitis.

*2. METS (3) - Winners of 17 of their last 22. And now it looks like they may be getting closer Billy Wagner back within a week.

3. BREWERS (2) - Unable to take advantage of the stumbling Cubs because they’re too busy getting swept at home by the Mets. Now they need to rally behind, um, Jeff Suppan to stop the bleeding. If they really want to make Sabathia an NL Cy Young contender, maybe just pitch him… oh, I don’t know… every night?

4. PHILLIES (4) - Sure, he may only be hitting .236 on the year, but there’s just something about Ryan Howard that makes me want to buy a Subway sandwich every time he comes up to bat.

5. ASTROS (8) - They’ve won eight in a row and they’re 27-10 since July 27^th which, ironically, is the day before Roy Oswalt came back from injury (he's 6-1 with a 2.56 record since he returned).

6. CARDINALS (5) - Yada yada Yadier. Molina finally had his thirteen game hitting streak snapped at Chase Field on Wednesday.

*7. DIAMONDBACKS (6) - Starting pitchers have won a total of one game since August 23. Even more alarming is that the one win came from Doug Davis, despite the fact that Webb and Haren had two starts apiece in that span.

8. DODGERS (9) - Lose eight in a row including a sweep at the hands of the Nationals, find yourself up against the ropes facing Haren and Webb the next two nights, then promptly rattle off five straight wins. Makes perfect sense.

9. MARLINS (7) - Falling off now but, considering the expectations coming into the year, they’ve definitely put on a show for their nine fans.

10. ROCKIES (10) - A month ago, it looked like Ubaldo Jimenez was emerging as the staff ace. Maybe not. Over the last month, he’s sporting an impressive 1-3 record with 18 walks and a 7.36 ERA.

11. GIANTS (11) - At this point, I’m fairly convinced they’re all using bats made out of cheese.

12. BRAVES (12) - Ranked behind a team that uses cheese bats. What more is there to say?

13. REDS (14) - Let the record show that only the Reds were able to snap the Pirates’ ten game losing streak.

14. PIRATES (13) - Dropping those ten straight games shows that maybe they just weren’t ready for the responsibilities that come with the #13 ranking they got last week. Being the thirteenth best team in the NL isn’t just all about glory and glamour. Clearly, this is the only way they’ll learn.

15. NATIONALS (16) - They’ve won ten of 13 to skyrocket up to #15 in the rankings. (Of course, they had lost 12 in a row before that, but who cares about the past in D.C. right?)

16. PADRES (15) - Throw out the sweep over Arizona and they’ve won just two of their last 13. Of course, if you throw out the sweep of Arizona, the Diamondbacks are in command of the NL West heading into the weekend series in L.A. Or, if you just throw the Padres out of the division completely for the rest of this season, the NL West might actually be considered somewhat competitive.

(* = division leader; teams on the Diamondbacks’ schedule in the next week are in italics)

*1. CUBS (1) - I don’t know what’s more baffling at this point: that we’re in late August and the Cubs are (in theory) the favorites to win it all this year, or that the team with the second best record in baseball is… Tampa??

2. BREWERS (2) - And how cool would a Brewers-Rays World Series be? And how mercilessly would you have been heckled had you suggested such a thing were even possible a year ago?

*3. METS (3) - Ah, the Mets. Winners of 11 of their last 14. And the only team in the NL with more bullpen questions than the D’Backs right now. It's ok though - the bullpen never really comes into play in the postseason anyway.

4. PHILLIES (4) - Fresh off a four game sweep of the Dodgers where they gave up just five runs total. And, all of a sudden, Brett Myers knows how to pitch again? 3-1 with a 1.24 ERA over his last six starts? Seriously? The guy’s ERA was up around 6.00 for the year in mid-July!

5. CARDINALS (7) - They simply won’t go away. And while he doesn’t even lead the team in RBI or HR (Ryan Ludwick does with 95 and 31 respectively) Albert Pujols and his .359 average just might end up the winner in this year’s wide open NL MVP race.

*6. DIAMONDBACKS (5) - Ok, let’s see here… need to talk about something else and dance around the bullpen issues… hmmm… hitting’s been decent lately…. Stephen Drew seems very comfortable in the leadoff spot…. Augie Ojeda’s stepped in admirably at second…. ummm… the BULLPEN CAN‘T SEEM TO CLOSE OUT A GAME WITHOUT FIRST GIVING EACH FAN HIS OR HER OWN PERSONAL STOMACH ULCER. It’s like a really bad promotional giveaway that should be sponsored by Pepto Bismol.

7. MARLINS (8) - I know Ken Kendrick holds the official title, but Ricky Nolasco is the one who actually owns the D’Backs - now 3-0 with 26 K’s, a 0.72 WHIP, and a 1.61 ERA against the Snakes in ‘08. He's also the pitcher who gave Brandon Webb his first loss of the year.

8. ASTROS (9) - This year’s victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If they were in the NL West, they’d be two games back. In the Central, they’re a distant fourth place team.

9. DODGERS (6) - An impressive 11-12 record since the Manny deal.

10. ROCKIES (10) - Nine games below .500, yet somehow still in this. Last year on this date, they were 6 ½ back; this year, they’re 7 back. And we all remember the run they made in ’07.

11. GIANTS (14) - Actually, they improved in the rankings more than any other team over the last week. That’s what happens when you go 5-2 over a seven day span (and have only like nine wins all year).

12. BRAVES (12) - Sinking fast. Maybe this is karma for all those years of Brave fans subjecting us to the “Tomahawk Chop”.

13. PIRATES (11) - Yeah, well, just wait ‘til next year!

14. REDS (13) - The bright spot of late has been rookie Joey Votto, with ten hits in his last 16 at-bats. If only he could keep that up over 500 at-bats, the Reds might have a decent shot. At second place.

15. PADRES (15) - On the off chance you’re looking to the Padres for help with your fantasy baseball team, (a) you have problems and (b) Jody Gerut (.322 average and eight homeruns - including a walk off Monday night against Jon Rauch and the D‘Backs) is your man.

16. NATIONALS (16) - Yeah, well… just wait ‘til 2015!

We may be looking back on this one at the end of the year.

It’s not that the Diamondbacks lost a series at home. It’s not that they lost to the rival Dodgers. Or even that their once mammoth lead atop the NL West is now completely erased.

No, the real problem lies in how they lost the series. If I told you that Haren and Webb would both pitch - and pitch quite well as usual - over the three games, you’d feel pretty good about Arizona’s chances. Especially if I threw in the fact that the struggling offense - an offense that put up an NL-worst 89 runs over the last month - would post 15 runs over the three games. So how did things go so wrong? Let’s start on Friday and take a look…

Friday’s game featured a few disturbing twists, not the least of which was the traffic on the way to the stadium. Over the first 50 or so home games, I’ve hedged my commute to Chase down to about 15 minutes without breaking any substantial laws. Friday took closer to an hour. As I sat on the I-10 wondering if I should just leave my car and walk (which, in retrospect, would have been noticeably faster), I came up with three potential explanations for this turn of events: (a) ADOT set up a blockade to keep hot hitting Dodger OF Matt Kemp from getting to the stadium, (b) people just don’t understand how to merge onto a freeway, or (c) everyone in the Valley must be going to this game and thus REALLY love Tony Clark. (For the record, it ended up being (b). Well, that and the previously unmentioned (d) - a major influx of Dodger fans into Chase Field, something that became more and more annoying with each passing run. And these were a rare breed of Dodger fan because they actually showed up before the fourth inning!)

The second disturbing twist was L.A’s ability to knock Doug Davis around - something they haven’t done in years - to the tune of three runs before Arizona even got to bat. That pretty much killed the buzz over the Tony Clark pickup as well as the feeling of a fresh start to begin the second half of the season. The Diamondbacks quickly got to business and rallied with five straight singles in the bottom of the first to go up 4-3 and eventually even built the lead to 6-3. At which point, Nomar Garciaparra inexplicably decided to revive his career, homering in the third to trim the Arizona lead to 6-5, then again in the sixth to cut it to 7-6 (at which point, I thought it was 1999 again. Nomar had two homeruns all year coming into Friday’s game and he puts up two in one game?? Honestly, I think you could have polled the fans before the game and half of them would have thought he was retired. I scanned the crowd for Mia Hamm after the second shot but found nothing except a big guy in a backwards Diamondback hat waving a hot dog in disgust. He didn't even have mustard on the dog. It was symbolic of the weekend as a whole.)

Of course, the Dodgers weren’t done there because, well, this isn’t a happy article. Kemp homered in the seventh off of Leo Rosales and then, four excruciating innings later, James Loney took Doug Slaten deep to give the Dodgers an 8-7 come from behind 11 inning win.

For Diamondback fans, the game wasn’t all bad though. If nothing else, it showcased Andruw Jones looking like an absolute shell of his former self on a few occasions, including once when he reacted to a Chad Tracy fly in the second inning like he was that little leaguer that the coach strategically puts in right field because he shows more interest in eating grass than playing baseball and no one under the age of ten ever hit’s the ball to right. I don’t know what happened to this guy. I never thought of him as the “great” hitter everyone else always seemed to think he was, but the man could always catch. I get that he’s older now, but the last time I checked, every player gets older. It’s not like he’s 60. In fact, he’s only 31! That’s how old Miguel Tejada’s been for the last four years and he seems to be doing just fine.

On to Saturday, where Dan Haren turned in another gem (four hits, no runs over seven innings), setting the stage for him to walk away with another no decision. (Seriously, the guy had given up nine runs over 56 innings in his previous eight games and had three wins to show for it. That‘s an ERA of 1.45 over that stretch! Three wins! I‘d be pulling my hair out.) Brandon Lyon - who I will point out right now has essentially been lights out since the first week of the season - struggled in the ninth, gave up two runs, and put runners on the corners before getting Kemp to pop out. Despite the unnecessary drama, the D’Backs got the 3-2 victory, Dan Haren finally got a much deserved win, and everyone was happy because the team not only won, they did it on 70’s Night at Chase Field. Good times. Arizona back up by one game in the division with Brandon Webb trotting out to the mound Sunday.

And so now we get to the potential backbreaker. Look, there’s still 64 games to go and I fully expect the team to make the playoffs. And, as I’ve said all year, their front two starters make them a very unenviable first round matchup, should they get there. However, the Dodgers have started hitting the ball and, if they end the year atop the NL West, it’s going to be Sunday’s game that put them there.

I’ll try to get through it quickly, like ripping a band-aid off. The team looked better and more aggressive on the base paths. Chris Young even picked up his sixth stolen base of the year. In the fourth, Stephen Drew nearly pulled off an inside the park homerun (Andruw Jones was the center fielder. Just throwing that out there), and Chris Snyder even squeezed Mark Reynolds home in the sixth. That’s right, the Arizona Diamondbacks breaking out the squeeze bunt - and executing it to perfection. Brandon Webb finally started to “struggle” a little in the eighth, but promptly got Jeff Kent to ground into a double play to get out of the inning unscathed. So we enter the ninth, with Arizona up 4-1 and about to open a two game lead in the division.

Instead, the Dodgers racked up six hits and five runs to go up 6-4 and ultimately win 6-5.

A few things about the ninth. First of all, Drew bobbled a ball at short that might very well have been a game ending double play with the score 4-2. But you really can’t fault a guy who went 4-for-5 at the plate with a triple. Especially when you consider the fact that he still managed to compose himself and get the out at first on the play. Secondly, Matt Kemp did it again. With two outs and two strikes, he fought Lyon off for awhile before doubling into center and tying the game. Maybe ADOT should’ve put that blockade up on Friday after all. And finally, Brandon Lyon wasn’t… well… good. He would tell you that if he were writing this. However, this is a guy who went from April 6 to June 29 without a blown save. In that time, he piled up 15 saves and gave up just four runs - all of which came in garbage time in a 15-1 loss to Oakland - in 28 appearances! Throw out the game against the A’s, and you’re looking at a guy who made 27 straight appearances without so much as allowing a run. And that’s why I don’t understand why he was getting booed by his home crowd on Sunday. I get the whole concept of paying for the ticket and being allowed to yell and boo or whatever, but it makes more sense to me to boo the other team. It just does. It’s not like Lyon has cost the D’Backs a ton of games this year. In fact, he’s been one of the few bright spots in the bullpen. He has struggled a little of late, and it’s solely on him to forget it and move on. I just never understood the value of booing your own closer for one really bad outing. That’s like going to a movie, loving the whole thing, then booing the end because the guy in front of you tipped his chair back too far and spilled your popcorn everywhere. There’s still 64 games left and, if this past weekend was any indication, the Diamondbacks need their closer the rest of the way.

Regardless, it certainly won’t go down as the best weekend series in Chase Field history. The Dodgers honestly seemed to have a complete attitude shift the second Webb left Sunday’s game. All of a sudden, after eight innings of looking like they all just swallowed bugs, they suddenly believed they could score again. And they did. Even Jones drove in a run! For the series, the Diamondback bullpen pitched 11 innings, giving up ten runs for an ERA of 8.18 with two losses. There’s not much in baseball that hurts more than having a lead late, only to watch it slip away.

Then again, when you’re feeling down, take a second and remind yourself that Arizona’s spending the 2008 season celebrating just ten years as a franchise and they’ve already won a World Series title. The team coming to town Monday hasn’t won a title since before most of our grandparents were born.

ON TAP:
Mon. 7/21 6:40 vs. Chicago Cubs (Randy Johnson vs. Rich Harden)
Tues. 7/22 6:40 vs. Chicago Cubs (Micah Owings vs. Jason Marquis)
Wed. 7/23 6:40 vs. Chicago Cubs (Doug Davis vs. Ted Lilly)