San Diego Padres

The San Diego Padres are four games up on the San Francisco Giants in the National League's Western Division and they're doing it all without second baseman David Eckstein and right-hander Chris Young.

So far, the Padres have been able to stem the tide without Eckstein and have pitched better than most thought without their ace. Just when it looked like they might be without both players until deep into September, they might get both back sooner than anyone thought.

With the the final game of the weekend's Giants-Padres series now played, and Giants find themselves 3.5 games out of first place in the NL West with 43 games left to play.

All season long, people have doubted whether the Padres would be able to hold onto their lead in the division, and with the Padres taking two-of-three from in the most recent match-up, the Giants now have some work to do if they hope to be playing in October.

The San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants play the first game of a three-game set that is sure to be an epic battle between two NL West teams.

Both are locked in a battle for the top spot in the division, there's already trash talk going on, and both want a series win in a big way. The winner of this series will definitely be in the driver's seat.

There will be several things to watch for during this series and several keys for each team to come out on top, but here are 10 things to watch for over the next three days.

The NL West hasn't gone the way most of the "experts" thought it would. The team leading the division, the San Diego Padres, was expected to be the bottom feeder, while the predicted leader, the Los Angeles Dodgers, sits in third place seven games back.

That sets up for a showdown in the bay area this coming weekend between the first place San Diego Padres and the second place San Francisco Giants who are just two and a half games back. The two teams have met eight times this season with the Padres coming out victorious in seven of those games.

Take a glance around the league and you will likely see most successful teams have a solid cleanup hitter penciled in behind the player batting third to prevent the four-finger salute.

Mark Teixeira enjoys the services of Alex Rodriguez. Albert Pujols has Matt Holiday. Chase Utley knows opposing teams would prefer him not be on base with Ryan Howard coming to the plate. 

The National League West isn't known for its rivalries in the same manner as the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees feud.

However, San Francisco Giants pitcher Jonathan Sanchez is doing his best to change that.

After the Giants lost 6-3 to the Atlanta Braves Sunday that extended San Diego's division lead to two games, Sanchez fired some heavy words in a tall statement.

A few weeks ago, Jon Paul Morosi of Fox Sports wrote an article that had a lot of the San Diego Padre fans up in arms. The day that article was released, I had one San Diego media member tell me, "I'd be upset if I actually knew who he was." Ouch.

In fantasy baseball, we use statistics all day, everyday. But a surprisingly high number of managers tend to ignore some fundamental statistics generated by the Society for Baseball Research. Get to know a new Sabermetric each week in this new series. This week we're looking at BABIP.

The day after the San Diego Padres acquired veteran bat Ryan Ludwick, he went 1 for 2 with a run scored. It's a great start.

But who came out victorious after the Padres, St. Louis Cardinals, and the Cleveland Indians made the three team trade was a question.

Here's what each team got:

Padres: OF Ryan Ludwick

Cardinals: RHP Jake Westbrook, LHP Nick Greenwood

Indians: RHP Corey Kluber

The Padres gave up the two minor league pitchers for Ludwick.

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