Streaky Teams

So San Francisco has managed to climb into the lead of the NL West, and Tampa Bay has won twelve straight games (plus they’re 17-3 in their last twenty games). Proving that you never know. I haven’t updated them for two days, but you can still view the rise of these two teams in the American League and National League divisional race graphs.

I did a quick review of Doug’s stats for the last twenty games, and was surprised to see that offense has been the key for the Giants. They’ve scored by far the most runs in the NL over the last twenty games, averaging seven runs a game, thanks to a surprising cast of characters, notably Deivi Cruz, Michael Tucker, A.J. Pierszynski, Dustin Mohr, Edgardo Alfonzo and, of course, Mr. Bonds. All these guys have an OPS over .800, and Cruz (8 doubles) is over 1.000. The Giants also been helped immensely by the return of Jason Schmidt.

Things are falling right for Tampa Bay, but they’re also getting great pitching from Mark Hendrickson and some good hitting from Julio Lugo, Jose Cruz Jr., Carl Crawford, Aubrey Huff and Tino Martinez.