TORRANCE TRIBUNE February 18, 2016 Page 5 Previewing the NL West Up and Adam By Adam Serrao Now that the football season has come and gone, it’s time to lace up the cleats and break out the balls and bats. The sun is beginning to shine again, the grass is getting greener and that warm, crisp breeze in the air is telling us all that baseball is on the way. As the season hastily approaches, it is quickly becoming clearer that the National League West will have a much different look this year. The Los Angeles Dodgers have had a strangle hold on first place over the last three seasons in the division, but will this year bring devastating changes to the land of L.A. and the NL West? Naturally, we here in Los Angeles want to jump the gun, fast forward all the way to October, and predict that the Dodgers will be the lone team surviving from the NL West, on their way to the World Series. Not so fast. This year was a year of big changes for the Boys in Blue - some good and some bad. Despite having Major League Baseball’s biggest payroll, however, former manager Don Mattingly and the Dodgers have failed to get past the Championship Series in the last three years. A loss to the Cardinals in the NLCS in 2013 was then followed with two straight losses in the NLDS in 2014 and 2015. Sure, the Dodgers won their division all three years, but the goal has been and always will be the World Series. The Dodgers haven’t been to the World Series since 1988. Naturally, that’s a position that the team is going all-out to try to get back to. So, out goes Mattingly and in comes Dave Roberts; a well-regarded coach who has never managed a day in his life. It sounds bad on the surface, but Mattingly never managed a day before taking over the Dodgers, either. Fans can only hope that players like Yasiel Puig, for instance, are more receptive to Roberts than they ever were to Mattingly. Roberts wasn’t the only change. Zack Greinke stayed in division and moved over to the Arizona Diamondbacks. The move was a huge blow to the Dodgers, losing a player who combined with Clayton Kershaw to form a dominant one-two punch at the top of the rotation that went a combined 104-34 with a 2.10 ERA over the last three seasons. Lefty Scott Kazmir joined the team and will now be looked upon to fill Greinke’s roll as a No. 2 starter, which will undoubtedly be difficult to do. Aside from Kazmir, the Dodgers failed to make a significant splash this offseason, as they have been accustomed to do under their new ownership. Youngster Corey Seager will finally get a full season in the Major’s to prove himself at shortstop, while Joc Pederson will look to rebound from a rollercoaster year in center field that saw him riding the bench come the end of last season. There is a lot yet to be written about this new-look Dodgers club in what will be an extremely long and trying 162 game season. Though anything can happen throughout the course of that time, L.A. looks to have third place written all over them in this year’s NL West. That brings us to the San Francisco Giants. The hated San Francisco Giants, who seemingly win the World Series every other year. This may be their year again. Bruce Bochy, in his 10th year as manger of the Giants, will boast one of the strongest pitching attacks in the entire league. Any baseball fan knows of the prowess of Madison Bumgarner. He will now be joined by World Series winner Johnny Cueto, right-hander Jeff Samardzija, and a back-end of the rotation that will feature Matt Cain, Jake Peavy and Chris Heston, who won 12 games last year in his rookie season. With the re-signing of Brandon Crawford, the arrival of Denard Span to play center field, and the usual steady hands of Buster Posey behind the plate and Joe Panik at second base, the San Francisco offense will be no worse for wear. If there’s one weakness on this club, it may be in the bullpen, but Bochy and company should have no problem addressing the issue before October rolls around. The Arizona Diamondbacks will most likely be this year’s surprise team, although it shouldn’t be much of a surprise. The arrival of Greinke will bolster a rotation that also features Shelby Miller (formerly of Atlanta), lefty Patrick Corbin, and Tyler Clippard. While certain offensive positions may be up for grabs in Arizona, don’t forget that they have some of the best power in the league with first baseman Paul Goldschmidt being backed by hard-hitting center fielder A.J. Pollock. Offense shouldn’t be hard to come by for a team that will now be capable of shutting other teams out with their revamped and formidable pitching staff. Arizona is my pick to take second place behind the Giants. The San Diego Padres and the Colorado Rockies will battle it out for the bottom of the division this year. The Padres, acquiring veterans like Matt Kemp last year, haven’t done much to help their own cause lately. They have now begun to trade away older talent in order to acquire youth. The Pads won’t be viable for a few more years. The Rockies, on the other hand, have no clear ace of their staff and will rely only on shortstop Nolan Arenado and center fielder Carlos Gonzalez to put runs up on the board. The division will most likely be split in half, with the Giants, Diamondbacks and Dodgers taking up the top spots, while the Padres and Rockies flounder toward the bottom. Predictions aside, there should be another great year of baseball in the works. The Dodgers have made a lot of changes that could either see the team rise to new heights, or take a slight step backwards while they wait for both their young talent to find its way and another giant free-agent splash. Dave Roberts could be the answer to the L.A.’s problems. Seager and Pederson could spark an explosive offense and Puig could finally come into his own. Who knows what will happen, but once the season gets started, we’ll all have 162 games to figure it out. No matter how the season finishes, though, this being Vin Scully’s last season behind the microphone should give every Dodger fan reason enough to watch (or listen) to as many games as possible. – Asixlion@earthlink.net Tartars Clinch Pioneer League Crown By Adam Serrao It’s been a long road for head coach Paul Nitake and his Torrance Tartars, but at last, his team has finally accomplished what they had set out to do last November when the season was just beginning. A few hiccups along the way made things a bit more difficult for the Tartars and interesting for other teams in their league, but with a 44-36 victory at home against league rivals West High last Thursday night, the Pioneer League title was finally theirs. It took overcoming two straight losses to Leuzinger and North High to do it, but by ending the season hot, Nitake and Torrance can head into the playoffs confidently and on a high note. The Tartars knew that they had to step their game up after suffering back-to-back league play losses to drop to 8-2 in their division two weeks ago. It wasn’t easy by any means, but that’s exactly what they did. In their first game of the week last Tuesday night, Nitake knew that going on the road to visit Centennial would be no easy task. The Apaches had won three games in a row against division opponents and four of their last five heading into the matchup while Torrance was, quite frankly, headed in the opposite direction. As expected, the game played out just as everyone had thought. A back-and-forth matchup saw a gritty game featuring lead changes throughout, but ultimately, it was Nitake’s team that pulled through in the end. The Tartars have been used to starting games off hot and getting up big on their opponents, only to cruise out to victory later on in the night. While this game was much different, Nitake saw his team handle adversity and pull through in a tight one, taking a 42-39 win while also taking one step closer to the much coveted Pioneer League crown. If the Tartars were to attain that crown, it was going to come against their league rivals, the West High Warriors. The rivalry between the two teams always goes understated. The Warriors would have liked nothing more than to spoil the Tartars plans of taking home a division championship. Giovanni Jackson, though, had other plans. His game-high 17 points helped Torrance maintain a safe lead heading into the fourth quarter. The senior stand-out captain who has been so clutch for the Tartars all season long didn’t let his team down. Behind Jackson’s energy the Tartars pulled out an eight point victory over their rivals from West High and, in the last game of the season, finally clinched the Pioneer League title. Playoff bracketing will be released soon, but Torrance (17-9, 8-2) and North, who finished right behind the Tartars in second place, will certainly have their chances to make a run in this year’s CIF playoffs. North High The North High Saxons (15-11, 7-3) did everything that they possibly could to catch the Torrance Tartars (17-9, 8-2) in the Pioneer League standings this year. Unfortunately for head coach Gary Duperron and his club, one 66-53 loss to Torrance earlier in league play kept the team from attaining their goal. Despite being unable to finish in first place, however, the North High Saxons finished the season on fire. Three straight wins to end the season, including a 96-55 shellacking over rival, South High, let the rest of the league and CIF know that Duperron and the Saxons are for real. Deon Montgomery finished the game against the Spartans with 14 points while teammates J.J. Belmontes, and Alex Brooks finished with 12 and 11, respectively. North will now head into the playoffs on fire looking to mow down any team in their path. Duperron has his kids playing at a level unlike any they have played at all year long, just in time for the most important point of the year. West High The West High Warriors (10-16, 4-6) role of playing spoiler was relatively short-lived. While the team, under head coach Neal Perlmutter, did knock off rival North High two weeks ago for an impressive 51-44 victory that kept See Up and Adam, page 7 Douglass M O R T U A R Y “Our Family Serving Yours Since 1954” B U R I A L - C R E M A T I O N - W O R L D W I D E T R A N S F E R P E T M E M O R I A L P R O D U C T S 500 EAST IMPERIAL AVENUE EL SEGUNDO, CALIFORNIA 90245 Telephone (310) 640-9325 • Fax (310) 640-0778 • FD658
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