NL Central Race
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After a torrid start, the Milwaukee Brewers are finally heading to where they are most accustomed to. The Chicago Cubs, after a hot stretch to climb up to first place in the division, are cooling down a bit. And the St. Louis Cardinals, after an utterly disappointing season so far, are now only three games out of first place after a loss to the Cubs on Friday. While the NL Central is by far the worst division in baseball in terms of quality of teams and their records, the division race is gearing up to be one to keep an eye on. The teams in front will not run away with the division, as evidenced by the Brewers and the Cubs letting the Cardinals back in the race after St. Louis was ten games behind at one point. Even the Astros are chipping away at the lead, now only seven and a half back.
The Cubs are going to be the team to beat. They were the trendy pick for winning the division in the winter after spending more than $200 million in the offseason. Alfonso Soriano won't be back for a few more weeks, which does hurt, but the Cubs should be able to stay alive during that time, with Aramis Ramirez and Derrek Lee contributing like they usually do. Ted Lilly is having a fine season, as well as Carlos Zambrano. Jason Kendall has been playing better after being acquired by the Cubs. And now they are in first place in the division after a Brewers loss tonight.
Milwaukee has the talent, youth, and the willpower to win the division, especially later on down the road. However, the youth aspect has its obvious disadvantages, as most of them have not experienced a quality pennant chase. The only people who have had major experience in this situation is Jeff Suppan, Scott Linebrink, and Craig Counsell, and they are not the major players that one might think of when the Brewers are mentioned. Perhaps next year with more experience, they will be able to contend throughout the whole year, but right now the pressure seems to be catching up to them to maintain their position in the division, and they just are not playing good baseball.
St. Louis is a mixture of the very old and the very young. With the recent infusion of AAA Memphis players, the Cardinals have sprung back to life, chopping off five games within the span of two weeks. Rick Ankiel, Ryan Ludwick, Anthony Reyes, and Brendan Ryan have become favorites of Tony La Russa with their aggressive play and their productivity, and somehow it's rubbing off on the rest of the team. Kip Wells, Jim Edmonds, Joel Piniero and others are resurging, and Adam Wainwright is finally showing that even with his success last year as a reliever, starting is still what he should be doing. The offense has to be more consistent, and the pitching has to keep up this improbable run of recent success.
Not much mention has been made of the Astros, but with the recent Brewers and Cubs slumps, they are now within striking distance also. The offense aside from Carlos Lee have not been playing as well as they could and have done in the past, and the pitching besides Roy Oswalt is not something necessarily to keep an eye on. Even with Brad Lidge's recent return to the closer's role, he's not going to be the utterly dominating figure he once was for a while, especially not for the rest of this year. Phil Garner is working some of his second half magic again, but the talent just is not their this time around for them to be full contenders.
Even Cincinnati is only nine games back and not entirely out, but it is doubtful that they would be able to make a run like the Cardinals have and get to the top of the pack. They don't have the talent to be able to do that. It takes a whole team, not just Aaron Harang, Ken Griffey Jr., and Brandon Phillips, to be able to contend, even in such a weak division as the NL Central, and the only reason they are hanging around is that the top teams have not run away.
Do the Pirates even have to be mentioned?
The eventual winner of the division probably will not go on a massive hot streak and dominate the division in the last month and a half. It will not be so bad that the division champion will have a record below .500, but they will probably be around 82-83 wins. Of course, with the Cardinals' success last year especially, it doesn't matter how well you do in the regular season, as long as you play well in the playoffs. The Astros will make a small run, but they will eventually fall back again and not be a threat this season. The Reds and Pirates obviously won't even have a sniff. The Brewers will stop their horrible slide, but they will only play mediocre baseball the rest of the way, as most players on the team have not had to play at such high levels for such a long period of time to make the playoffs before. The race will actually be down to the Cubs and the Cardinals, and the Cardinals, despite their age and lack of success this year, should be able to pull it off IF they at least split this current series with the Cubs. This series is a critical point in the season for both teams, and one team will be dejected while the other gets the fuel to continue on with the season. With their experience and their recent hot play that they should be able to keep up, the Cardinals have a good shot at pulling off their eighth division title in twelve years. The Cubs will give them a run for their money, but they don't have much experience either, as they are the Cubs.
