Arizona Diamondbacks: How Far Can NL West Champs Go?

The Arizona Diamondbacks clinched the NL West on Friday and the franchise's first postseason since 2007. The surprising D-Backs beat the San Francisco Giants in a game that was a microcosm of the season: good pitching and a come-from-behind win.

But there is one question that still remains for this Arizona team, How far can they go?

That really depends on a couple things like who they play first and where they play. Arizona has the confidence to play with anyone, and skipper Kurt Gibson won't let them give up against anyone, the Phillies included.

Read on for evaluations of key aspects like defense and relief pitching and realistic expectations on how far this Arizona Diamondbacks can go this postseason. 

Starting Pitching

Starting pitching has been much improved this season and a couple stars have emerged. Ian Kennedy has won 21 games and Daniel Hudson has won 16 games while Joe Saunders has 14 wins and rookie Josh Collmenter has 10 wins. 

Kennedy and Hudson were supposed to be the top two guys, but no one predicted they would win 37 combined wins and that Kennedy would be in contention for the Cy Young award. But the production of Saunders and Collmenter has been even more surprising.

They have 24 combined wins and have stabilized the end of the rotation.

Reliable starting pitching is a big part of postseason baseball, and usually, the most successful teams have top-tier starters. Kennedy, Hudson and Saunders have 49 combined wins, which is good for the second-most wins as a starting trio in MLB, only behind the Detroit Tigers trio of Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer and Rick Porcello.

Bullpen

The bullpen was absolutely terrible last year, and this season has been a complete 180. Newcomers J.J. Putz, David Hernandez, Bryan Shaw, Joe Paterson, Brad Ziegler and Micah Owings have given the Diamondbacks a much improved bullpen.

Putz and Hernandez combine to give the team one of the best setup and closer duos in the league. 

Arizona now has the most saves in Major League Baseball with 57 saves and has a bullpen ERA of 3.66. It takes off pressure from the starters when they know the bullpen can keep a lead and finish any game. It's just all around peace of mind for the team.

 If starting pitching has to be good, then the bullpen has to be great. It does the team no good if the starters are amazing and the bullpen blows the lead late. 

Defense

Defense and pitching are the most important aspects of the game come postseason play and the Diamondbacks have plenty of both. The team only has 88 errors, which is sixth-best in the league, and a fielding percentage of .985, the eighth-best in the league.

Also, Arizona catchers have thrown out 41 percent of attempted base stealers, which is best in the league.  

What these numbers mean is that Arizona rarely makes mistakes throwing and catching the ball. It really helps pitchers when they know almost every play will be made and made with precision. 

Offensive Firepower

The Diamondbacks are ninth in the majors in runs (717) and homers (169) and eighth in runs batted in (685). The team is led by Justin Upton, who is batting .291 with 31 home runs and 88 RBI, and Miguel Montero, who is batting .283 with 18 home runs and 86 RBI. 

The interesting part about this Arizona team is that they are a late scoring team. They start off slow almost every game, and by the third time through the order, they make some noise and score some runs.

The best example of this is Friday's game against the San Francisco Giants, when the D-Backs came back to score two runs in the bottom of the eighth and won the game 3-1. 

Conclusion

The Arizona Diamondbacks have the pitching, offense and underdog status to make a splash in postseason play. The big key is who they play the first round because they can play with any team except for the Philadelphia Phillies.

They have to get the second seed to avoid the Phillies in the first round, so they have to have more wins than the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Diamondbacks, and really everyone else, do not want to play the Phillies as whoever plays them will probably lose. So really the D-Backs need to avoid them at all costs. The ideal situation would be for the Brewers and Phillies to play in the first round with the Brewers winning.

The Diamondbacks could then play a reeling Atlanta team and hopefully beat them to play the Brewers in the NLCS.

But this is not a perfect world, and it's looking like the Diamondbacks will play the Phillies. As an Arizona fan, it hurts me to say this, but the Diamondbacks will not make it out of the first round if they play the Phillies. The Phillies are simply too good and have too much pitching and offense. 

If in some crazy upset, the D-Backs do beat the Phillies, then they could go to the World Series, at least in my opinion. So fingers crossed for either the second seed or an upset!