The most difficult division in all of baseball to call right now would have to be the National League West. With three teams within half a game of the division lead, there's a good chance the division race could go right down to the wire. That's months away, but the division should grab headlines this weekend with all three of the potential leaders meeting up with a divisional foe.

The San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks entered Thursday night's action deadlocked atop the division, with the L.A. Dodgers sitting only half a game back. This weekend the Padres and Dodgers face off for three games at Dodger Stadium. At the same time the Diamondbacks have a three-game set in San Francisco against the last-place Giants. If Arizona can pull off a sweep against the lowly Giants, they could take over first place while the Padres and Dodgers beat up on each other.

The pitching-rich Padres and experienced Dodgers appear to have the edge over the Diamondbacks, whose roster includes five rookies, but with reigning Cy Young Award winner Brandon Webb and Randy Johnson at the top of their rotation the D'Backs are not to be counted out.

If you tune in for only one game in those series make it Saturday's contest between San Diego and Los Angeles. An Under bet in that game would probably be the smartest bet of the weekend, as the Padres send ace Jake Peavy up against Dodgers ace Brad Penny. Peavy is 9-2 on the season with the third-best ERA in the NL at 2.14. Peavy also leads the league with 113 strikeouts. Penny has been equally impressive with a 10-1 mark and an NL leading ERA of 2.04.

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For the second straight year , the Oregon State University Beavers and the University of North Carolina Tar Heels will be meeting in the best of three games, Championship Series of the College World Series. Games One and Two will be played Saturday and Sunday night with first pitch at 7 p.m. at Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, Neb.

Oddsmakers at Sportsbook.com see Game-One as an even match-up installing both Oregon State and North Carolina with -115 betting odds. 

photo caption: Oregon State Beavers swarm the field after winning the CWS Championship over NC in 2006. 

Oregon State won the 2006 National Championship in a series against the Tar Heels that went the distance with OSU taking a 3-2 win on an unearned run in the bottom of the eighth inning. 

The Tar Heels have made it to the Championship Series the hard way, by progressing through the loser’s bracket while facing elimination in each game. The Tar Heels survived their first game by defeating Mississippi State 8-5 but got pounded by the Rice Owls 14-4 in their second game. Following a 3-1 win over Louisville, the Heels would have to beat the Rice Owls twice to progress to the championship round. 

On Wednesday, North Carolina downed the Owls 6-1 behind the solid pitching of Robert Woodard whom allowed just a run on five hits over 6 2/3 innings. The Tar Heels completed their mission against Rice by beating the Owls 7-4 Thursday night, leaving just one more goal yet to be checked off. Fittingly, UNC will get another crack at defending national champion Oregon State.

Maybe the return of pitcher Roger Clemens really was all the New York Yankees needed to turn things around. Since the Rocket's arrival in the Bronx, the Yankees have been one of the best teams in baseball. In fact, the Yankees are sporting one of the best records in all of baseball at 10-2 during the month of June.

Clemens can't receive direct credit for all of the recent success because he's only made one start in pinstripes so far in the 2007 baseball season. But the rise in confidence among the Yankee players that has accompanied the winning streak is no doubt largely attributable to the presence of The Rocket both on the mound and in the team's clubhouse.

After enduring a brief setback caused by a scar-tissue injury in his right groin, Clemens finally made his Yankees' debut versus Pittsburgh last week and lasted six innings, allowing three runs on five hits with seven strikeouts in a 9-3 Yankees win.

The seven-time Cy Young Award winner returns to the mound on Friday night when the Mets visit Yankee Stadium for an interleague battle. Clemens has plenty of experience versus the New York Mets from his three years in Houston, when he went 3-5 with a 5.09 ERA in 10 starts. Against the hard-hitting Mets' lineup, Clemens will need to be much better than that for the Yankees to continue their winning ways.

If the Yankees' sluggers can continue hitting with as much pop as they have been already in June, Clemens may be able to surrender four or five runs on Friday night and still escape with a win. The baseball stats speak for themselves: after hitting a measly .208 in May, Bobby Abreu has regained his old form and is smoking the ball in June. So far this month Abreu is batting at a .457 clip, with two home runs and 13 RBI in 12 games. Abreu only went yard once and drove in nine runs in 28 games in May.

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New York’s second sub-way series of the season gets underway Friday night when the Mets, losers in nine of their last 10 games visit the Yankees, winners of nine straight games. This time around, it’s the Yankees who are entering as the series favorite, installed by online sportsbook Bodog.com with a -190 money line chalk to win the three game set. Oddsmakers also like the Yankees chances of winning Game-One Friday behind the arm of Roger Clemens (-185 ml). The Mets are getting +165 odds for the series opener and +190 in winning the three game set. The total on Game-One is holding at nine. 

The Mets prevailed in 2 of 3 games in the sub-way series recently played at Shea Stadium May 18-20. The UNDER cashed on the total in two of the three games. While the Mets won the series SU the Yankees cashed on the run line in two-of-three games. Coming into the May series between the clubs, the Yankees were struggling having lost four-of-five games. 

"Obviously, we feel a lot better about ourselves going into this series than we did the last series," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "It gives you an indication of what the season's like. What Willie's [Randolph] going through right now is pretty much what we were going through when we saw them over there. Something is going to end their streak and hopefully they'll get over that stuff after they get out of here."