Midway Baseball Extraganza (NL Edition)

We’re halfway through the baseball season, so let’s see where things stand…

As we hit baseball’s halfway point, I figured it’s as good a time as any to do a rambling little baseball extravaganza. We’ll do the National League today and the American League tomorrow.

National League West

Generally speaking, there aren’t too many surprises so far in the West. The Dodgers have had a few ups and downs—Mookie Betts’ injury was a big bummer—but they’re still leading the division by eight and a half games and nobody seems up to the task for challenging them.

The Padres, according to our pal Justin Halpern, are on pace to set a marvelous record. See, they have been exactly .500 twenty-two times already this year (as Justin predicted, they lost on Sunday to fall to 41-41). This put them on pace to shatter the record, which Justin says is 33, set by the 2011 Toronto Blue Jays. Now let me be clear: The 2011 Toronto Blue Jays (who finished exactly .500) are a noble holder of such a beautiful record. They were delightfully mediocre. BUT… I am now rooting very hard for the Padres to get the record because I simply cannot imagine anything on earth more San Diego Padres-like than them being .500, again and again, all season long.*

“What if some day, a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you, ‘The life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more.”

I have little doubt in my mind that Nietzsche would have been a Padres fan.

*Justin is convinced that the only thing that can prevent the Padres from smashing this record is Jackson Merrill’s insistence on being pretty awesome.

The Arizona Diamondbacks