Was it what you'd expect?
It's all over but the shouting
in my head
Here's where we are after last night's action:
STANDINGS
WEST W L PCT GB HOME ROAD RS RA San Diego 46 40 .535 - 27-16 19-24 386 377 Arizona 42 45 .483 4.5 21-23 21-22 387 469 LA Dodgers 40 45 .471 5.5 22-20 18-25 375 409 San Francisco 36 48 .429 9 19-24 17-24 387 450 Colorado 30 54 .357 15 23-21 7-33 381 473
Does anyone else think this race is over? Because I sure do.
Colorado was never going to be a factor, anyway.
The Giants have spent the first half of the season Waiting for Barry. While they've been waiting, they've slipped 12 games below .500. It would be quite an accomplishment for them to come back to win 80 games.
The Diamondbacks have hung surprisingly close, but they've allowed 82 runs more than they've scored. This is largely because of their habit of losing games by 10 runs every couple of weeks; still, that's not something characteristic of winning teams.
And the Dodgers, the poor, beknighted star-crossed Dodgers. At the moment, the Dodgers have their third-baseman, shortstop, right-fielder, and centre-fielder on the Disabled List. Plus some guy named Gagne. And now second-baseman Jeff Kent has tweaked his hamstring.
In other words, Padres win. Pretty well by default, being the only half-decent team in the division.
In fact, I fully expect to spend the rest of the year doing Padres updates, as they prepare for the post-season.
Before the season began, 84 brave Bauxites went on record in THE CONTEST, 2005, and now that I've posted the link all of you, having looked it up, can say to yourself "Magpie picked Oliver Perez to win the Cy Young? What a maroon!"
Anyway, it's quite possible that the current standings will also represent the final order of finish. The D'Backs are sinking down, but the Dodgers are dropping like flies, and Barry may decide "what the hell, might as well just rehab all summer." So how many of us picked this precise configuration?
Um, no one. Not a single one of us. Oh-for-84.
The Dodgers were predicted by 59 voters to win the division. The Padres drew 21 votes. The Giants received 4. I'm not going to mention the names of any Box authors who placed too much faith in Barry's Imminent Return. It was probably an early vote, cast before the Bad News about Barry got out.
Of the 21 voters who picked the Padres, 17 expected the Dodgers to finish second. Once more the Giants had 4 backers.
In fact, just two voters thought the D'Backs would finish second, and both of those ballots picked the Padres to finish last.
Here's the composite vote:
Team 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Los Angeles 59 19 5 1 0 San Diego 21 48 11 1 3 San Francisco 4 15 49 15 1 Arizona 0 2 15 49 18 Colorado 0 0 4 18 62See those 4 third-place votes for the Rockies? Craig B and myself account for half of them... What were we thinking, Craig? What came over us? Do you remember?
Both NDG and VBF came very close to predicting the current state of affairs, and could still be proven right. Both had the Dodgers second and the D'Backs third. That could certainly come to pass before this thing's over. They had the other three teams where they are now.
Bauxites weren't the only ones to go on record, of course. Nineteen of ESPN's baseball writers went on record as well in ESPN predicts the 2005 season. Alas, they didn't give the order of finish. But the Padres did very well in the ESPN poll, with 9 first place predictions, along with 7 votes for the Giants and just 3 for the Dodgers.
