PHOENIX (AP) — The Arizona Diamondbacks are in the midst of a stretch that most big-league clubs can only dream about, winners of six straight games, 20 of 25 since the All-Star break and 30 of 40 since late June.
Certainly, that should be enough to take control of the NL West. Right?
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San Diego Padres starting pitcher Joe Musgrove is greeted by teammates after exiting during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
Arizona Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo, right, hugs Adrian Del Castillo after he hit a walk-off home run against Philadelphia Phillies during the ninth inning of a baseball game Friday, Aug. 9, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Darryl Webb)
Los Angeles Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw pitches during the first inning of a baseball game against the Milwaukee Brewers, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Aaron Gash)
San Diego Padres' Jackson Merrill, right, is met by Xander Bogaerts (2) after hitting a two-run home run during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Miami Marlins, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Los Angeles Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani celebrates his solo home run in the dugout during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies in Los Angeles, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Kyusung Gong)
Arizona Diamondbacks' Ketel Marte acknowledges fans as he celebrates after his solo-home run against the Philadelphia Phillies during the first inning of a baseball game Saturday, Aug 10, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Darryl Webb)
Not even close.
The NL West is home to three of the hottest teams in baseball, including the Diamondbacks, San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers. As pennant races around baseball heat up with approximately 40 games remaining, the one out west looks like the best with sluggers like Shohei Ohtani, Manny Machado and Ketel Marte duking it out on a nightly basis.
“We’re very aware of it,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of his team’s shrinking lead last week. “I’d be lying if I said no one’s watching the scoreboard and appreciating how good the rest of the teams in our division are playing.
“That just puts the onus on us to play good baseball.”
The Dodgers — who have won the division in 10 of the past 11 years — looked well on their way to another division title by mid-June. They have arguably the best lineup in baseball with Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, and Tyler Glasnow leads a rotation that is solid.
But Betts missed 1 1/2 months with a broken left hand and the Dodgers weren't quite the same in his absence. That gave the D-backs and Padres the opening they need to make a move.
And move they did. The Padres and the D-backs have been on fire since the All-Star break — San Diego has a 19-4 record and Arizona is 20-5. The Dodgers aren't playing poorly with a 15-9 record during that span, but they're struggling to hold their division lead.
The Padres (69-53) and D-backs (69-53) were just two games behind the Dodgers (71-51) on Thursday.
Buckle up.
“It’s fun to be a part of, a lot of hard work goes into it,” D-backs slugger Joc Pederson said of his team’s success. “Everybody comes to the field every day prepared to do their thing to help the team win. It’s a powerful thing when you’ve got all the guys pulling on the same string.”
The Dodgers are still loaded with talent. Betts has returned from his injury with a flourish, injecting the lineup with his power-speed combo. Los Angeles added right-hander Jack Flaherty in a trade and three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw is back, joining Glasnow and Gavin Stone in the rotation.
“I think the biggest thing for us is we’re getting some guys back," Kershaw said. "We’re getting our lineup the way we want it. We’re getting some guys — starter-wise, reliever-wise, everything — we’re having our team look like what we want our team to look like.
"I think you’ll see us kind of start to take off here pretty soon.”
They better, because the Padres and D-backs are in hot pursuit.
The Padres have been one of the most frustrating teams in baseball the past few seasons, loaded with high-priced talent often without the matching results. But this version has been formidable.
Jurickson Profar is having a career year and All-Star rookie Jackson Merrill continues to play great, joining veterans like Jake Cronenworth, Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts and David Peralta in the lineup. Right-hander Joe Musgrove looked good in his recent return, helping a rotation that includes Dylan Cease, Michael King and the recently acquired Martín Pérez.
“I am going to give it everything I have as long as they will to allow me to hold the ball out there,” Musgrove said. “Me being healthy down the stretch is a big part of this team.”
Then there's the D-backs. The darlings of last year's postseason following a surprise trip to the World Series, they got off to a slow start this season with a 39-43 record on June 29. They're 30-10 since that point, boasting one of MLB's top offenses and a starting rotation that's getting healthy.
Marte is having an MVP-caliber season while others like Jake McCarthy have produced. NL Rookie of the Year Corbin Carroll is also playing better after a brutal start to the year. Recent additions, including first baseman Josh Bell and reliever A.J. Puk, have played well and even rookies like Adrian Del Castillo are contributing big moments.
Three hot teams. One division title up for grabs.
Six weeks of baseball remaining.
“I love where this team's at,” D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said. "I don't want to get too far ahead of things. We try to stay present. Try to stay humble. We go out there to do our best every day and go 1-0.
“We're a really good baseball team. And when we do things right, we can get on this type of run.”
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
San Diego Padres starting pitcher Joe Musgrove is greeted by teammates after exiting during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
Arizona Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo, right, hugs Adrian Del Castillo after he hit a walk-off home run against Philadelphia Phillies during the ninth inning of a baseball game Friday, Aug. 9, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Darryl Webb)
Los Angeles Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw pitches during the first inning of a baseball game against the Milwaukee Brewers, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Aaron Gash)
San Diego Padres' Jackson Merrill, right, is met by Xander Bogaerts (2) after hitting a two-run home run during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Miami Marlins, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Los Angeles Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani celebrates his solo home run in the dugout during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies in Los Angeles, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Kyusung Gong)
Arizona Diamondbacks' Ketel Marte acknowledges fans as he celebrates after his solo-home run against the Philadelphia Phillies during the first inning of a baseball game Saturday, Aug 10, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Darryl Webb)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday directing the United States to again withdraw from the landmark Paris climate agreement, dealing a blow to worldwide efforts to combat global warming and once again distancing the U.S. from its closest allies.
Trump's action, hours after he was sworn in to a second term, echoed his directive in 2017, when he announced that the U.S. would abandon the global Paris accord. The pact is aimed at limiting long-term global warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels or, failing that, keeping temperatures at least well below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels.
Trump also signed a letter to the United Nations indicating his intention to withdraw from the 2015 agreement, which allows nations to provide targets to cut their own emissions of greenhouse gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. Those targets are supposed to become more stringent over time, with countries facing a February 2025 deadline for new individual plans. The outgoing Biden administration last month offered a plan to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by more than 60% by 2035.
Trump's order says the Paris accord is among a number of international agreements that don't reflect U.S. values and “steer American taxpayer dollars to countries that do not require, or merit, financial assistance in the interests of the American people."
Instead of joining a global agreement, “the United States’ successful track record of advancing both economic and environmental objectives should be a model for other countries,'' Trump said.
Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation and a key architect of the Paris accord, called the planned U.S. withdrawal unfortunate but said action to slow climate change “is stronger than any single country’s politics and policies."
The global context for Trump's action is “very different to 2017,'' Tubiana said Monday, adding that “there is unstoppable economic momentum behind the global transition, which the U.S has gained from and led but now risks forfeiting."
The International Energy Agency expects the global market for key clean energy technologies to triple to more than $2 trillion by 2035, she said.
“The impacts of the climate crisis are also worsening. The terrible wildfires in Los Angeles are the latest reminder that Americans, like everyone else, are affected by worsening climate change,” Tubiana said.
Gina McCarthy, who served as White House climate adviser under President Joe Biden, a Democrat, said that if Trump, a Republican, “truly wants America to lead the global economy, become energy independent and create good-paying American jobs," then he must “stay focused on growing our clean energy industry. Clean technologies are driving down energy costs for people all across our country."
The world is now long-term 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.3 degrees Celsius) above mid-1800s temperatures. Most but not all climate monitoring agencies said global temperatures last year passed the warming mark of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, and all said it was the warmest year on record.
The withdrawal process from the Paris accord takes one year. Trump’s previous withdrawal took effect the day after the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Biden.
While the first Trump-led withdrawal from the landmark U.N. agreement — adopted by 196 nations — shocked and angered nations across the globe, “not a single country followed the U.S. out the door,” said Alden Meyer, a longtime climate negotiations analyst with the European think tank E3G.
Instead, other nations renewed their commitment to slowing climate change, along with investors, businesses, governors, mayors and others in the U.S., Meyer and other experts said.
Still, they lamented the loss of U.S. leadership in global efforts to slow climate change, even as the world is on track to set yet another record hot year and has been lurching from drought to hurricane to flood to wildfire.
“Clearly America is not going to play the commanding role in helping solve the climate crisis, the greatest dilemma humans have ever encountered,″ said climate activist and writer Bill McKibben. “For the next few years the best we can hope is that Washington won’t manage to wreck the efforts of others.”
About half of Americans “somewhat” or “strongly” oppose U.S. action to withdraw from the climate accord, and even Republicans aren’t overwhelmingly in favor, according according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Only about 2 in 10 U.S. adults “somewhat” or “strongly” in favor of withdrawing from the Paris agreement, while about one-quarter are neutral.
Much of the opposition to U.S. withdrawal comes from Democrats, but Republicans display some ambivalence as well. Slightly less than half of Republicans are in favor of withdrawing from the climate accord, while about 2 in 10 are opposed.
China several years ago passed the United States as the world's largest annual carbon dioxide emitting nation. The U.S. — the second biggest annual carbon polluting country — put 4.9 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in the air in 2023, down 11% from a decade earlier, according to the scientists who track emissions for the Global Carbon Project.
But carbon dioxide lasts in the atmosphere for centuries, so the United States has put more of the heat-trapping gas that is now in the air than any other nation. The U.S. is responsible for nearly 22% of the carbon dioxide put in the atmosphere since 1950, according to Global Carbon Project.
While global efforts to fight climate change continued during Trump's first term, many experts worry that a second Trump term will be more damaging, with the United States withdrawing even further from climate efforts in a way that could cripple future presidents’ efforts. With Trump, who has dismissed climate change, in charge of the world’s leading economy, those experts fear other countries, especially China, could use it as an excuse to ease off their own efforts to curb carbon emissions.
Simon Stiell, the U.N. climate change executive secretary, held out hope that the U.S. would continue to embrace the global clean energy boom.
“Ignoring it only sends all that vast wealth to competitor economies, while climate disasters like droughts, wildfires and superstorms keep getting worse," Stiell said. “The door remains open to the Paris Agreement, and we welcome constructive engagement from any and all countries.”
Associated Press writer Linley Sanders contributed to this report.
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
AES Indiana Petersburg Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant, operates in Petersburg, Ind., on Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)
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