How the National League West will be won ... by the biggest loser

John Kruk made a bold statement on ESPN’s SportsCenter on Sunday:

“No team in the NL West will finish with a .500 record.”

OK, maybe that’s not such a daring prediction since every team in the NL Worst is below .500 at the All-Star break.
Arizona is flirting with .500 at 47-48, but everyone else in the division is straight up struggling with half the season in the books.
The second-place Dodgers are one-game above .500 at home but are three-games under overall, and the third-place Giants are (gulp) 15-games under on the season.
So when was the last time a team won its division with a losing record?
A long look through the record books shows it has never happened.
The San Diego Padres tried their best to make a run at the dubious record in 2005 but finished the regular season 82-80 to win the NL West pennant.
In 1994, the Texas Rangers were on track to finish well below .500 with a 52-62 record before the strike mercifully saved Major League Baseball from a major embarrassment (wait a minute).
Since the leagues split into multiple divisions in 1969, only one other “biggest loser” has made a run at a pennant. The New York Mets came close in 1973 but finished 82-79 to win the NL East, eventually taking the A’s to seven games before falling in the World Series.
So there is hope, even for sub-.500 teams at the All-Star break.
In fact, since MLB went to a six-division format and expanded the playoffs to allow wild-card entrants, 27 of the 104 teams that made postseason had losing records in June or later – including half the playoff participants the past two seasons.
That's great news for the "Biggest Loser" candidates in the NL Worst.