THE DENVER/L.A. WARS---Rockies & Dodgers, Nuggets & Lakers  

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SPECIAL OLYMPICS SUMMER GAMES, COLORADO, June 2, @ UNC, Greeley, Colorado. For more information, go to specialolympicsco.org , or: 800-777-5767.

ROCKIES, NUGGETS --- Tuesday’s was a hard and disappointing night for the Colorado Rockies baseball club and the Denver Nuggets basketball team. Each failed to avoid defeat handed down from a Los Angeles adversary, the Rockies losing to the Dodgers at Coors Field, the post-season Nuggets losing for the second time in a row to first-round-playoff competitor, the L.A. Lakers.

Yet some good was shown by the Rockies and the Nuggets during their losses to the Dodgers and the Lakers, for instance, the Rockies coming back from a seven run deficit on Tuesday night (losing 7-5 instead of 7-0), and the Nuggets closing a 14 point gap around the same time, finishing 104-100, which otherwise would have been as embarrassing as Sunday’s Nuggets 103-88 loss to the Lakers.

For the Rockies, Tuesday night wrapped up the first month of its MLB season, while ending two series that addressed what could be the club’s best capabilities and more serious limitations for upcoming competition and September’s run for division and league supremacy. Today, the Rockies are 12-12 and in fourth place of the National League-West, though only four games behind the NL-West’s first place team, the Dodgers, and still at .500, with some thanks to Rockies DH and first baseman, Jason Giambi, delivering a walk-off home run on Wednesday night, enabling an 8-5 win over the L.A. team.

In the NL, the Rockies are ranked eighth among 16 teams. Up against American League clubs, the Rockies record is roughly equal to those of the Oakland Athletics and the Chicago Cubs, second place franchises within their respective divisions. All told, the Rockies finished the month of April as an above-the-margin franchise, its team batting average above .250. Too, the team avoided series shutouts in April, and hasn’t lost three games straight since April 4. Of the seven three-game series that the Rockies faced in April, they’ve won four.

THE DAYS AHEAD---- Rockies manager, Jim Tracy, and Nuggets head coach, George Karl, can reflect now on that which within their teams can be exploited favorably so that, in the Rockies case, the team can advance up the ladder from .500 and get to first place in the NL-WD; and, in the case of the Nuggets, so that they can win two at home starting this evening, and two more at L.A., in hope of getting to the second round of the NBA Western Conference playoffs.

The Rockies know that they could take advantage of opposing team weaknesses and accrue 11 runs in a single inning---such goes a long way toward maintaining confidence and the will for winning future battles, as happened against the N.Y. Mets on April 17, the Rockies finishing that game 18-9. An earlier double-digit Rockies win occurred against the San Francisco Giants, 17-8, on April 11. Of course, skills count for more---April’s better Rockies maneuvers in this category have been many, among them, the team’s early- and mid-lineup power-settings, which included outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, first baseman Todd Helton, and shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, each not only banging out home runs and extra-base hits, but doing so when needed the most, e.g., in the third week of April, Gonzalez smacking four home runs with 11 RBI’s. Add the Helton grand slam walk-off homer versus the Mets, April 29, and Tulowitzki achieving a .333 batting average since the season’s opening day.

Moreover, the inconsistency of Dexter Fowler’s hitting seems to have diminished some, and Marco Scutaro, Michael Cuddyer, Ramon Hernandez and Eric Young, Jr. have been superb choices for the Rockies starting line-ups, each at defense and also as base-runner. Combined, the four have had multiple hits across nine games. As to a surprise, while not leading the NL in significant categories, the Rockies starting pitchers and relievers have exceeded expectations---during a total of around 195 innings pitched, the Rockies starters and relievers have allowed as many as 235 hits, implying an exceptionally large number of hitless innings thrown. And, the Rockies pitching staff ERA hasn’t been the sky-high number feared by the end of April, its 4.71 an acceptable stat after 24 games.

Tuesday’s loss by the Nuggets to the Lakers indicated that the Denver team’s embarrassing drop on Sunday was a fluke. Though its defense on Tuesday remained spotty, it kept the Lakers from scoring in three digits until late in the fourth period and helped enable the Nuggets offense to have the time needed to narrow differences in points and reach positions from which the team could have defeated the Lakers. The Nuggets also began carving court space for speedy breakthroughs, finding holes for reaching edges of the key and going into the paint for field goal attempts, including three-pointer attacks. Had the Nuggets shooting greater accuracy on Tuesday, the Denver team would not have experienced a large deficit in points at any moment of the game; they might have won the game.

For tonight, the Nuggets will need to keep three Lakers players from the coordination that they displayed during playoff games one and two: Kobe Bryant, Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol. Though Bynum and Gasol have had the height to set up shots for Bryant, who scored 38 points during game two, they’ve shown that they can be stopped with more aggression than the Nuggets demonstrated throughout much but not all of Tuesday night. And, the Nuggets offense, especially guards Arron Afllalo and Ty Lawson, plus forwards Danilo Gallinari, Kenneth Faried and Al Harrington, will need non-stop support for evading Bryant, Bynum and Gasol as these five fast and agile Nuggets players rush to score.

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