NL West

Today officially marks the one-year anniversary of Los Angeles Dodgers polarizing superstar Yasiel Puig making his major league debut.

The Dodgers were 23-32 and 8.5 games back in the NL West at the time of his promotion, and they proceeded to go 69-38 the rest of the way, roaring back to take the division title by 11 games over the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Lost in the ugliness of the Arizona Diamondbacks' 4-14 start to the season and the team's marquee hiring of Tony La Russa has been the gradual growth and development of the D-backs' young core position players.

Since getting swept by Joe Torre and the New York Yankees in the 1998 World Series, the San Diego Padres have only played playoff ball twice.

Even on those two occasions that they managed to take an underpaid club and over-perform enough to swing the bats in October, they’ve only been victorious once.

San Francisco Giants third baseman Pablo Sandoval hit a solo home run in the sixth inning of Thursday's game against the St. Louis Cardinals to extend his RBI streak to nine games.

While most Los Angeles sports fans are still frustrated at the Lakers' fortunes in last week's NBA draft lottery, the hometown baseball team has its own draft coming up in less than two weeks.

The 2014 MLB draft is set to begin on June 5, with the Los Angeles Dodgers slated to make a selection at No. 22.

Last year, the team chose right-handed pitcher Chris Anderson out of Jacksonville University with the 18th pick. 

The Los Angeles Dodgers recently recorded 17 consecutive innings of hitless pitching, setting a team record since the franchise moved to Los Angeles, per the team's official Twitter account.

As weird as it may sound, lucky cowboy boots could help explain how the San Francisco Giants' Pablo Sandoval has turned things around this season.

Sandoval was below the Mendoza line through the early part of May, but he has bumped that average up substantially recently. He has hit .429 with four home runs and 11 RBI during his current six-game hitting streak.

At this point in the season, the San Francisco Giants are rolling.

The biggest issue so far?  Hunter Pence having his scooter stolen. 

In a move that was surprising and seemingly came out of left field, the Arizona Diamondbacks announced last Saturday that the organization hired Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa to become the team's newly created chief of baseball operations.

In years past, we haven't gotten many excuses to ask what's wrong with Clayton Kershaw. That's a question that you ask when a pitcher is either hurt or ineffective, and Kershaw has rarely been either.