Peter Gammons Locates The NL West

Credit Peter Gammons for breaking through ESPN protocols and writing a nice piece on the NL West, which he points out is 24 games over .500 in games played outside its division. He also had nice things to say about the Dodgers' core, notably its outfield of Manny Ramirez (about whom you can still taste a lingering bitterness from Gammons, a Red Sox diehard), Andre Ethier, and Matt Kemp: The joke is that Dodgers GM Ned Colletti could be arrested for shoplifting, as in the last two seasons he has acquired Manny Ramirez, Casey Blake, George Sherrill, Jon Garland, Jim Thome, Doug Mientkiewicz, Ronnie Belliard and Vicente Padilla and paid them a combined total approximately the equal of the $2.7 million that the team saved during Manny Ramirez's suspension. [...] For now, the Dodgers hope Garland and Padilla give them innings and support Randy Wolf, Kershaw and Chad Billingsley and allow Joe Torre to wait until the seventh and eighth innings before he has to ready his bullpen....