Now that the first month of the season is over, let's check in the National League.  Let's start out in the West side:

Our girl Erin must be pretty happy with the Dodgers being in first.  We personally had them pegged to struggle this year, so this makes us look bad.  Brad Penny with a 1.64 ERA?  The over-the-hill gang is producing: Nomar leads the team with 19 RBIs (.304 BA), Jeff Kent is right behind him with 17 RBIs (.316 BA), and Luis Gonzales leads the team in HRs with 4.  Unfortunately, that is the problem with the Dodgers - do I count only 14 HRs for the team?!?  A-Rod has the same amount of homers as the Dodgers so far this season.  Power is going to be a problem all season long.

Even worse, $47 million ace Jason Schmidt has struggled, then got injured.  Of course, the rest of the pitching staff is doing work:  team ERA = 3.38.  You got Penny, plus Mark Hendrickson (1.66 ERA in 21 IP), and stud closer Takashi Saito (7 for 7 in save opportunites, 1.32 ERA).  

The Diamondbacks, our pick to make noise in the West, are... making noise in the West.  They are a half-game behind the Dodgers.  Much like the Dodgers, the offense in Arizona has been lacking a bit - yo, is that Tony Clark with 4 home runs?!?  He always gets like 20 homers in 200 ABs....

The pitching?  Start with Brandon Webb, one of my two favorite pitchers in the NL (the other is Carlos Zambrano).  A fantasy staple of my team since his rookie year, the sinkerball pitcher is just getting warmed up - he is 2-1 with a 3.21 ERA.  Of course, he's given up 10 ERs in 12 IP against his foils, the Rockies.  Take that out of the equation for a second... and he's 2-0 with a 1.50 ERA (in 30 IP) against the rest of the league (Washington, SD twice, LAD).  Doug Davis is stepping it up a bit this season (a little bit of a reach for him), with a 2-2 record and a 2.79 ERA.  Closer Jose Valverde (another fantasy staple) is 10 of 11 in save opportunities.  Brandon Lyons is setting it up nicely, with a 1.50 ERA in 12 IPs.  His 6:3 walks to K's ratio is scaring us, though.  With the Big Unit back, expect the D-Backs to hang around in this race for a while longer.

Doug Davis is on the mound tonight to try to get the DBacks back into first.

The rest of the West: The Padres are off to a slow start, which doesn't really surprise out.  They never really seem to overpower you, they just hang around .500 for most of the season, and just sit there while the rest of the division tends to fades away in the summer (as we think the Dodgers will).

Adrian Gonzales (one of our fantasy 1B sleepers) is off to a blazing start, hitting .310 with 7 home runs and 26 RBIs.   Another fantasy sleeper, 2B Marcus Giles, is also warming it up with a .327 BA, 2 HRs, and 4 SBs.  We say the same thing about Giles every year - sell high!  The injury is coming, so shop him while he's doing well.

Jake Peavy has allowed one run or less in 4 of his 6 starts.  That's dominating.  He's doing his best to keep the Cy Young award out of Carlos Zambrano and Brandon Webb's hands, but like Giles, we'll see if he can avoid the DL.  Our man is still Chris Young, he of the 3-2, 3.34 ERA (this after yesterday's 8 IP, 0 ER, 3 H masterpiece).

The Giants are doing exactly how I figured they would.  Hold tight in third place.  If you want Giants analysis, go see this guy. 

Colorado has underachieved a bit, but they are a really young team that has yet to hit its stride.  Garrett Atkins is struggling a bit, with a .263 BA and only 2 HRs from the 5th spot.  Still, with Todd Helton and Matt Holiday lighting it up in front of him, it is only a matter of time before he starts mashing again.

We think the Rockies will improve a bit as the season moves along.  What won't approve is their dumb ass slogan: "R you in?"  Um, R you kidding me?

Speaking of moving along, we'll do a recap of one division a day each week from now on.  The order will be as follows:

Monday: AL East Update
Tuesday: NL East Update
Wednesday: NL West Update
Thursday: Checking in on the Brewers
Friday: The AL Central.

Once in a while we'll acknowledge the AL West, especially now that we have acquired Felix Hernandez on our Fantasy team.

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