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Diamondbacks on the rise as they eye Dodgers in August

Diamondbacks on the rise as they eye Dodgers in August

The Arizona Diamondbacks, who snapped a two-game winning streak in Cleveland on Wednesday, appear to be a surefire candidate for the National League playoff spot, but why settle for that?

Ketel Marte is playing like an MVP. The starting rotation is getting reinforcements. And Arizona, as a team, has been hotter than Arizona since we entered the hottest days of the summer.

Isn’t it time we started looking at this team as a contender to win the NL West?

That seems like a bit of a crazy statement, considering the Los Angeles Dodgers are leading the league in 10 of the last 11 seasons.

So why not?

Marte has been playing as well as anyone in the majors lately, a performance that has coincided with Arizona’s rapid rise up the rankings.

Marte and L.A.’s Shohei Ohtani were in a virtual tie in one really useful, really nerdy statistic going into Wednesday. Ohtani led the NL in bWAR with 6.0, and Marte was second with 5.9. (And if you care, bWAR is just a way to measure how much better a guy is than the average player in terms of wins. Otherwise, just say Marte played great overall baseball and eat your sunflower seeds.)

Plus, he’s been vying for the triple crown “for the last month.”

Marte hit 11 home runs from July 10 through Wednesday’s games, more than any other player in the majors.

He hit home runs in three consecutive games this year.

And he’s scored nine goals in the last two weeks.

Duck! Marte hit another one! (Probably.)

He had 21 RBIs from July 22 through Wednesday, the most in the majors.

He also has a .323 batting average since the last week of June, which ranks him second in the majors behind Miami’s Xavier Edwards.

And these aren’t empty calories, the team is starving while Marte is getting fatter. The Diamondbacks are level with him.

If the season had started on June 29, Arizona would have been first in wins with 22. The Mets would have been second with 19 wins.

And they’ve learned to win late, too, with six wins in games where they trailed in the seventh inning or later — and, you guessed it, that’s the most in the majors.

In fact, the DBacks had fallen behind in half of their 22 wins between late June and Tuesday.

What I mean is, these guys can play and they don’t give up.

It’s possible that first place could be at stake when the Dodgers come to town in a few weeks.

And we all know how Marte plays when the world is watching. I remember Marte acting like Willie Ruth Aaron Griffey in the playoffs last season and winning the MVP of the National League Championship Series.

The best part is that while the Dodgers’ board of directors has a Hollywood budget, Arizona general manager Mike Hazen is crowdfunding to make an independent art film.

Winning the NL West seems like a tougher challenge than making the World Series, and this season Arizona is in a position to do both, including playing a lot of games against teams that are .500 or below in the postseason.

Arizona looks set to make the playoffs, but why settle for that?

A World Series appearance last year and a chance to win the NL West in mid-August?

This is enough to make longtime Diamondbacks fans nervous.