Stuck in the Middle

The top two teams in the NL West are racing for the pennant. The bottom two are so far out of it that it's kind of pathetic.

And that leaves the Rockies perched right in the middle. Yes, they're still under .500, but are close enough to the Giants and Rockies that they can still technically be classified as good. Plus, there's a ton of really nice aspects of this team.

The rookies are definitely impressing- Trevor Story had a huge start, and David Dahl is having an amazing finish. Tyler Anderson is making some waves in the rotation, and Carlos Estevez (no relation to Martin Sheen) is doing an adequate job closing games.

The guys who've hit well for the Rox in the past have been holding a very tight ship. If they can keep Nolan Arenado, DJ LeMahieu and Charlie Blackmon around for the near future, they'll be in fantastic shape. I understand that Carlos Gonzalez will likely be trade bait fairly soon, but it'd be kind of nice if they kept him around too.

Plus, and this is incredibly odd for a Rockies squad, but...as of right now, the bulk of the pitching staff has a W/L percentage over .500. This almost never happens in Colorado. Nobody's exactly blowing the door down like Ubaldo Jimenez did back in the day, but...people like Chad Bettis, Tyler Anderson, Tyler Chatwood and Jon Gray have been pitching surprisingly well.

True, this is still a third place team that has some work to do, and is still well behind the Giants and Dodgers, but...for a third place team, they look like they could be going places.

Coming Tomorrow- The one they call Crush, entangled in a division battle that's so big and epic that now FOUR TEAMS are in on it.