West not best, in A.L. or N.L.

SAN DIEGO – Welcome to the wild, mild West.

From San Diego to Seattle and all points between, there’s still hope for the local nine – and it’s August already. With the turn for the pennant-race home stretch in sight, every major league baseball team west of the Rocky Mountains – yes, that includes the Rockies – is in the running.

Or perhaps, more accurately, in the stumbling. If the baseball season indeed is a marathon, not a sprint, the American League and National League West appear to be races among ponderous donkeys.

A season after the San Diego Padres become one of baseball’s least-inspiring division champions, tripping across the finish line at 82-80, the mediocrity seems to have spread.

Going into the weekend, only four games separated San Diego, Arizona, Los Angeles, Colorado and San Francisco in the N.L. West. In the A.L. West, it was only 3 1/2 games from Oakland to Seattle, with Los Angeles and Texas in between.

Sure, being the tightest divisions in ball equates with being competitive, with no Kansas Citys or Pittsburghs stinking up the place. On the flip side, San Diego (56-52, .519) and Oakland (57-51, .528), have the lowest winning percentages among all division leaders. The Detroit Tigers, they’re not. Potential October cannon-fodder, they are.

“No one in our division is running away with it, and that’s a fortunate thing for us,” Seattle’s Willie Bloomquist said in a ringing endorsement of the A.L. West. “I’ve heard people say that’s because no one wants it. Every team has talent. It’s a case of who exhibits it down the stretch.”

At least fans of the streaky Mariners no longer are calling for the heads of manager Mike Hargrove and general manager Bill Bavasi as they were when Seattle was 22-32 on May 30. The Mariners then won nine of 11 to crawl back into contention.

In a vast and diverse region that’s spawned everything from fish tacos to Starbucks buzz to Rocky Mountain oysters and, uh, BALCO, there seems to be a prevailing opinion for why the West is marginal.

“I think with things like revenue sharing, everything is geared toward parity in baseball,” said Padres leadoff hitter Dave Roberts, who two years ago with the Boston Red Sox helped bring down the pricey New York Yankees in the A.L. Championship Series.

“We knew going into this season our division was going to be tight from start to finish, and that’s playing out just like we thought.”

The late Pete Rozelle, who championed parity in the NFL, would have loved the average-at-best Wests. Imagine if every team finished 81-81.

“There’s not one team that’s far and away better than the other teams,” said Padres right-hander Chris Young, who was obtained from Texas in January and twice flirted with no-hitters this season. “Likewise, there’s not one team that the rest of the division beats up on. It just comes down to who’s playing better baseball in September.”

In that case, cue up Green Day’s “Wake Me up When September Ends.”

Padres ace Jake Peavy offered this sobering fact: “This division’s not that far out of the wild-card race. We could very easily have two guys come out of the West.”

Then again, the division titles might be decided by the next nine- or 10-game losing streak.

That said, how ‘bout the Dodgers? They lost 13 of 14 after the All-Star break and were five games out at the trading deadline, then acquired Greg Maddux and Julio Lugo. Dodgers rookie GM Ned Colletti could be the hero of the N.L. West.

“The whole division, we were really prepared that somebody from the outside world would go to each one of those clubs,” said Giants GM Brian Sabean. “I’m not surprised.”

The Giants are in a span of 19 straight games against division rivals.

“How many games out are we?” manager Felipe Alou asked at midweek. “If the players and myself don’t believe we’re good enough to make up 4 1/2, that’s not saying much. And that’s after losing nine straight.

“I believe they believe. They better believe.”

The Rockies haven’t yet made way for the Broncos in the Mile High City, where the humidor at Coors Field has meant fewer wild-scoring games and 11 shutouts.

“I don’t see it as a division of mediocrity,” Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said. “We are in a competitive division and we’re all in it. The race will probably come down to the final week. Isn’t this what you want?”

Of course. It’s just that the Rockies are usually well on their way to a 90-loss season by now.

Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin likes the P-word, too. His team appeared to be all but cooked in June, becoming distracted after unheralded reliever Jason Grimsley became the latest player caught up in the steroid scandal. Even so, a brutal stretch of 20 losses in 24 games left them only 4 1/2 games out.

“No one, other than the Dodgers, really has an overly ridiculous payroll,” Melvin said. “Everybody is fairly close. It just seems like there’s parity in baseball as a whole now, not just our division.”

Angels reliever Brendan Donnelly offered this smackdown:

“I think over there, there’s not really a standout team in that division that has enough talent to really run away with it. I think there’s more talent in the A.L. West than the N.L. West.”

Donnelly acknowledges that the Angels – who lost in the A.L. championship series last fall to the eventual World Series champion Chicago White Sox – and A’s aren’t ripping it up on offense.

“So when you add a little bit of mediocrity on our part and Oakland – and the fact that Texas and Seattle have improved – now here we are, all four of us instead of just two,” he said.