The Homestretch, Day 9: The Way the West Will Be Won

In recent years, the MO of the NL West has been to score little and allow little. Tonight, in the second of a critical four-game set, the two clubs that have done this best squared off at Petco Park in San Diego.

The San Diego Padres, the Little Friars That Could, an embattled, grisly bunch who couldn't buy a win for almost two weeks, scratching and clawing their way to a slim division lead.

The San Francisco Giants, impotent offensively without steroid users, praying for aged veterans to revisit their primes, riding the waves of a potential rookie of the year and marginal deadline acquisitions, surging ahead in a furious attempt to grasp glory.

These are the two teams that best embody NL West baseball.

Leave it to them to decide a game without hitting a ball out of the infield.

That's what the Giants did at least, and the result was the lone run in a game that saw the Padres finally have some company atop the division.

After six innings of shutout baseball from both sides, southpaw Clayton Richard hit the Giants' Aubrey Huff to open the seventh. Richard was quickly lifted by Bud Black for Luke Gregerson, who, on a busted hit-and-run play, struck out Pat Burrell but allowed Huff to steal second base. Newly acquired Jose Guillen then came up and hit a grounder in the hole to shortstop, a play in which Huff stupidly decided to try for third, but by the time Miguel Tejada came up with the ball and threw to the bag, Huff had time to slide in under the tag. If Tejada goes to first on the play, there are two outs, and Juan Uribe's RBI groundout that followed would have indeed been the third out. Instead, the Giants scored without the benefit of a base hit. A hit batsmen and two weak ground balls were all the offense they would need to pull off a victory. If that's not small ball, then I don't know what is.

And yet, games like this continue to be the story in the National League West. Games where the home Padres had almost three times as many walks (8) as hits (3). Games where pitchers consistently strand runners from inning to inning (17 total stranded tonight). Games where runs are scored on fluke plays that should never happen. Well, almost never. And we wonder why an NL West team has not won a World Series in nine years. The baseball they play is ugly. It's gritty. It's a war of attrition. Tonight, the Giants held out longer, and their spoils include a share of first place.

But as much as we want to talk about and focus on the Giants and Padres and the battle they waged tonight, there is a far more potent offensive force closing fast which bleeds a deep purple. Yes, the Colorado Rockies, an aberration with a Goliath lineup among division Davids, winners of eight straight, seemingly indefatigable, are approaching the high ground. It's a three-team free-for-all in the NL West, a battle royale of sorts, slowly and painfully being executed through a series of grueling individual skirmishes like tonight's at Petco. It would be impossible for the division to be decided any other way, for this is its history, and its triumph.

With the ball never leaving the infield.