National League West Turns Up the Heat in Baseball’s Hottest Division Race

The Los Angeles Dodgers have the trophy. The San Diego Padres have the fire. The San Francisco Giants have renewed energy.

Welcome to Hot California Summer, where passion and team loyalty already have sparked a brilliant energy that should cast a shadow long into the fall.

Pinning down the best division in baseball before the All-Star break is an unnecessary chore. Nobody hands out rings for closely matched teams from a specific geographic region.

The champion might not come out of the National League West, like it did last season. It might not even spawn the best playoff series in baseball, like it did last season. But it is set to offer the most episodes worth binge-watching.

Half of the country is asleep by the time West Coast games wind down. So hit record and watch them at a more reasonable hour. Just don’t ignore them. Streaming offerings like this should not be missed.

Action, entertainment and drama. It’s all going down in the dive-bar hours.

Case in point: It was approaching 1 a.m. on the East Coast on Thursday when the pressure cooker lid blew off the top of a Dodgers-Padres game as the teams tried to close out their seventh meeting in a span of 11 days.

The Padres would win the game, the Dodgers would finish with five victories in the stretch, and statements would be made. In a rollicking eighth inning, the Padres’ Fernando Tatis Jr. was hit by a pitch for the third time in the seven games. The Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani was hit for the second time in the half-inning immediately following a Tatis plunking.

Where the teams postured behind home plate after Tatis was hit — with the only action taking place when Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shoved Padres manager Mike Shildt — Ohtani insisted on no more theatrics after he was drilled, in the back of his pitching shoulder no less.

Ohtani’s thick, white-gloved hand in the air toward his teammates as he walked away from them toward first base symbolized a peace offering. Then again, it kind of looked like a way to say, “Not worth it.”

The Padres’ Manny Machado said the Dodgers should “pray” that Tatis was not seriously injured. He suggested the division leader “set a little candle up.” Maybe the Dodgers did. Tatis played the next day against the Kansas City Royals. And so did Ohtani against the Washington Nationals.

Ohtani even made his own statement the following day by throwing in the bullpen before the game as he prepared for his second start of the season Sunday.

The fuse is now lit, but it will be on a slow burn with the teams not set to meet again until August, within another tight window that has six games scheduled in 10 days.

Up in the Bay Area, Rafael Devers arrived in San Francisco to be the centerpiece of an offense that desperately needed one. Even with limited run-producing capabilities, the Giants were tied for first place as recently as last week.

In Devers, the Giants found a way to add an offensive star after they failed in recent pursuits to land bats like Aaron Judge, Carlos Correa and Ohtani in free agency.

As the Boston Red Sox work on their latest new way forward, three of their former standouts are playing key roles in the watch-me-if-you-can-stay-awake NL West: Mookie Betts (Dodgers), Xander Bogaerts (Padres), Devers (Giants).

The Golden State is pushing for a golden era of division baseball, with another team intent on crashing the party. The Arizona Diamondbacks have played well below expectations but showed as recently as 2023 they can muster some midseason guile and turn it into a World Series run.

“It’s gonna be a fun ride,” said the Padres’ Manny Machado, stepping in as the narrator this summer needs. “This division’s freaking awesome, and it’s gonna be a fun ride going down the road.

“The Giants got better with Devers, and we know what (the Dodgers) have on the other side. And what we have on this side. And obviously you can’t count out Arizona. They’ve got a really good team over there. They’re gonna be battling. It’s a four-headed monster battling it out, so it’ll be an interesting second half.”

So grab a cup of coffee. Or a seat at the dive bar.