MLB: THE NOW AND FUTURE COLORADO ROCKIES

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

MLB:   Thursday afternoon at Coors Field, the National League-West’s fourth place team, the Colorado Rockies (29 wins/46 losses), demonstrated how good a team they can really be, that they could play baseball exceptionally well and in high gear. During the bottom half of the first inning versus the Washington Nationals, the Rockies put five runs on the board with hit after hit, and during the second they put up two, score 7-0. This surely surprised, since the Rockies had just lost two games in a row to the Nationals, 12-5 on Tuesday, 11-5 on Wednesday, giving them a poor record for the month of June: seven wins, 17 losses.

First up for the Rockies, bottom half of the first inning vs. the Nat’s was center fielder Dexter Fowler, punching a line drive-single. Rockies second baseman, Marco Scutaro, followed with a single, sending Fowler to second. Next, left fielder Carlos Gonzalez sent the ball into right field, pushing Fowler home. Up next was first baseman, Todd Helton; he walked. After, third baseman Chris Nelson singled and Scutaro went home, Rockies ahead 2-0, with men on first and second. Next to the plate was right fielder, Tyler Colvin---he hit a two RBI home run, Rockies leading 5-0 . . . Bottom of the second inning, a Gonzalez single started the base running that pushed the score forward.

Then the Nat’s found holes in the Rockies defense and put up 10 runs during subsequent innings, matching the Rockies 10. The dueling into an 11^th inning allowed the Rockies to put up an extra run, final score: Rockies 11, Nat’s 10.

Somewhat comforting during this awful MLB season for the Colorado Rockies is having split the recent four game series with the Nat’s, a team tied for first in the NL with the Dodgers. Signs of competence matter when a team is trying to dig itself out of a hole that’s been dug mainly from successive losing streaks---six straight losses in May, eight losses in a row during June.

            At best, the Rockies could have but a 36/46 win/loss record by the MLB All Star break. This means that the Rockies would have to win all of 10 games scheduled between now and July 9---three on the road vs. the Padres, four against the Mariners, and three against the Nat’s at Washington, D.C. But to date, the Rockies longest winning streak for the year occurred in May, four won against the Astros, followed by a win vs. the Dodgers. Right now, the team average is below .400. Only something close to daily miracles could give the Rockies a post-season billet. Best that the team concentrate on training days, on making improvements for the 2013 MLB season, which if done right could put the Rockies at .500 by September while positioning players for being the best that they could be starting next April.

Important, of course, is a realistic look at the Rockies strengths and vulnerabilities, and there are many of both. For one thing, as we’ve mentioned before on this page, the Rockies have been a work-in-progress, not a finalized ball club capable of settling on a single goal such as selection for post-season play. Recent rostering portrays a new franchise, e.g., yesterday’s line-up showed that only Dexter Fowler, Carlos Gonzalez and Todd Helton were regulars in the previous year’s line-ups. The current year’s list of starting pitchers has certainly been new: LHP Christian Friedrich, LHP Josh Outman, RHP Jeremy Guthrie, others. There’s no choice here but for Manager Jim Tracy and his pitching coach to be running a laboratory even as late as June. The lab’s current experiment is a four-man starter rotation and a set number of pitches that, when thrown, will mean relief from the bull pen. Whether this forces the new starters to pitch more strikes and strengthens them for being afield every four days won’t be known until late August. Noted is that enough of the Rockies pitching staff have thrown enough strikeouts for Tracy to believe in them, to hang with bets that they can improve, example: the Rockies bull pen has been lowering its ERA. With star pitcher Jorge De La Rosa returning in late August, and the four man rotation working to advantage, September could prove to be the Rockies perfect trial run for 2013, while lifting the team’s win/loss record.

Looking at Rockies hitting, on the bright side of the team’s 17 losses in June, only two were without hits producing runs. Oddly, while last being a .500 team on April 27, the Rockies are leading the National League in extra base hits, accruing 251. Too, during its eight June wins, the Rockies have scored a total of 62 runs, a figure that is near to, at or above that of the best eight games won by most MLB teams that have been .500 or over since May. Best among the team’s hitters are Carlos Gonzalez, having achieved more base holdings than any other National league player this year---167 total bases. Too, he’s third in the NL re. total number of RBI’s achieved---53, as of last Tuesday. Also, Dexter Fowler leads the National League in achievement of triples. Among the newer players, talent could do well in 2013 from upticks in on-base consistency from Colvin (he’s got eight home runs this year), catcher Wilin Rosario, infielder Jordan Pacheco, infielder/outfielder Michael Cuddyer, and Marco Scutaro (his walk-off RBI-single won yesterday’s game).  

So---saying “Wait ‘til next year” needn’t be an empty slogan repeated by Rockies field boss Tracy and General Manager, Dan O’Dowd, even if delivered forcefully before the All Star break, even if the Rockies win less than half of the team’s upcoming 10 games.

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LONDON OLYMPIAD; Basketball-USA (first of a series of periodic reports re. the 2012 Olympic games)

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

INTEREST in world sports keeps gaining, big time! The evidence is clear and heady from the upcoming London Olympics, and from the recent NBA Finals that were televised around the world for many millions to see, and from much-watched European soccer being in full swing to determine which of the planet’s footballers will be crowned "best" (the U.S. audience for this keeps advancing). Add that the audience for Formula One Grand Prix motor racing in countries on several continents has increased, with an event to be televised worldwide from Austin, Texas, this summer. And, the recently held French Open (tennis) drew record viewers. Wimbledon is already having a similar reaction, with the U.S. Open to be televised several weeks later by more stations across the globe.

Next March, there’ll be another WBC (World Baseball Classic), which supplanted the baseball competition that was taken away from the Olympics. Too, several individual sports now have their own cable-TV networks: baseball, football, tennis.

A fair guess is that HBO stats reflect more international pay-per-viewers for championship boxing matches, than appeared in the past. With some luck, and as more persons pay attention, world sports could gun down the “reality TV-crapola” that's vomited across the world’s TV channels since around year 2000. NBC expects a record audience for its coverage of the London Olympics, starting July 27.

Organized world sports began many centuries ago, in now troubled Greece, where the first Olympics occurred (8^th Century, BC), and which hosted an Olympiad in 2004. Revived in 1896, there have been winter and summer Olympiads ever since, under the auspices of the IOC (International Olympic Committee), excluding war time. Beijing hosted the 2008 Olympics, and Rio de Janeiro will be hosting the 2016 summer games. The London activity will include more than 10,000 athletes from over 200 countries competing in more than 25 sports yielding well over 300 events, many happening simultaneously at different venues, among the more popular categories track and field (includes a marathon), basketball, swimming, diving, gymnastics, soccer, boxing, tennis, volley ball.   

            The U.S. will shine in several sports, but nothing will be easy for Team USA, for, as in most other areas of human endeavor, the rest of the world has been gaining on America’s ability to deliver super athletes. That the U.S. will win the lion’s share of gold and silver this year isn’t a slam dunk. What is close to a guarantee is that the U.S. won’t be lagging far behind, won’t be sucking wind.

Looking good for the U.S. at London are the athletes selected for basketball (men and women, the latter having won five gold), swimming, track and field, and boxing, with U.S. fans hoping for U.S. dominance in basketball from the get-go. From a roster of around 20 top players, those chosen by Duke University coach and Team USA basketball coach, Mike Krzyzewski, as starters across the series of games will be LeBron James and Chris Bosh of the Miami Heat, also Dwyane Wade of the Heat if he recovers from an injury, plus Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder, possibly Russell Westbrook of the Thunder, Carmelo Anthony of the New York Knicks, and Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers, but with Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic, and Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls, taken from the roster due to injuries, the going can be quite rough. Of course, that Mike K. has won more basketball games than any other currently active basketball coach (globally), well, that says something.

            Stay with us for periodic coverage of the 2012 Olympic games.

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MLB:  Not an easy season for either league; the Colorado Rockies & hitting bottom  // NBA: Heat & Thunder, Game 5.  

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

MLB:   For most of the major league clubs this year, there are 18 games before the All Star break, when more than half of a baseball season will be over, each club having played 70+ games. But compared with many past seasons, the American League and the National League are today below the margin, in that only three franchises of the 32 that comprise the leagues have averages above .600. From the American League, it’s the Texas Rangers (.614 from a 43/27 record) and the New York Yankees, (.603, from 41/27). From the National League, it’s the Los Angeles Dodgers (.618, re. 42/26), which implies that the Dodgers are the better team in professional baseball today, now leading the NL and the NL-West. The Texas Rangers are leading the AL-West, five games ahead of the L.A. Angels. The Yankees are leading the AL-East, two ahead of the Baltimore Orioles.

Meanwhile, 13 MLB teams are below .500, and of these are three teams under .400. The lowest and so last in both leagues, are the San Diego Padres (.343, from 24/46), just behind the Chicago Cubs (.348, re. 24/45). Third from the bottom, we have the Colorado Rockies (.373, 25/42). The Padres and the Rockies are of the NL-West, the Cubs of the NL-Central. As for a last place AL team, it’s the Minnesota Twins, at .403, from a 27/40 record. If we go by these numbers, the AL is the superior league, and were it not that the NL-West’s Dodgers and San Francisco Giants have been among the top three teams in the NL, the NL-West would be listed as the worst division in baseball today.

The NL-West’s fourth and last place teams are the Rockies and the Padres, respectively and one game apart. The Rockies have been lowered there by a poor starting rotation, and they are playing without superb shortstop and heavy hitter, Troy Tulowitzki. It could be eight weeks before Tulowitzki is afield again. Without Tulowitzki, the Rockies offense isn’t the sort that can reach levels high enough to compensate for the above 6.0 ERA that the team’s rotation keeps flashing. It’s a rotation that’s essentially hurlers that can’t prevent mediocrity from gaining on them after three or four innings, and the Rockies haven’t enough good relievers to offset the damage.

Up ahead for the Rockies, a team that’s lost 12 of its last 13 challenges, are three games versus the Rangers, followed by four vs. the Washington Nationals, the latter now leading the NL-East at .591 from 39/27, currently the only NL team close to joining the .600 gang. Also, the Nationals have been holding second place in the NL behind the Dodgers. One might think, then, that the person who wrote the schedule for Colorado baseball hates skiing, mountain-climbing and John Denver lyrics, for the upcoming Rockies games vs. the Rangers and the Nationals are that nightmare that many a club manager has had, the manager’s low-ranking team being challenged by two of baseball’s top franchises.

Losing the seven games could put the Rockies behind the Padres, making the Rockies last in the NL. On the other hand, the Rockies took a series away from the Dodgers in the first week of this month, and the Rockies have maintained the best interleague record of any other NL or AL team since 2006, which has included wins against AL teams of every caliber. Winning four or five of the upcoming seven, or losing four gallantly, could paint the Rockies as that engine that could, proving what is really so in spite of what the numbers say, that the Rockies are a team that belongs in the MLB and that can fire up and will do so once the team’s young pitching staff can rise above the margin under the alterations that are being made, among the fixes a four-man rotation and going to the bull pen earlier than that usual fifth or sixth inning change of hurlers.

NBA:   From an amazing leap-ahead third quarter, and a fourth quarter grip on a huge edge in points, the Miami Heat put the Thunder asunder in game five of the year’s NBA championship go-round, 121-106, defeating the Oklahoma City team four games to one, becoming an NBA championship team for the second time in franchise history, doing so in ways unexpected, not as only the three bigs LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh dominating, but as a team of five+, Mario Chalmers a great shooter and defender in game four, Mike Miller a super shooter in game five (seven three-pointers, one below the NBA Finals record held by Boston’s Ray Allen). And, it wasn’t James as the game’s MVP because he’s a gifted shooter (28 ppg for the 2012 finals); it’s been James the rebounder, James the passer, James as master of the assist, all that hardwood selfishness that he’s been accused of gone!

Observers could comment safely that the Heat quieted the Thunder by often playing the way that the Thunder got to the year’s NBA Finals, with more teamwork than star power, even with the Thunder’s Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook driving and scoring high when opportunities to do so existed. Heat teamwork dominated, especially in game five, during which four of the team’s athletes finished with high double-digit points.

Wrap-up: the Thunder took game one, 105-94; the Heat won game two, 100-96, game three, 91-85, game four, 104-98, game five, 121-106. Across the five games, the Heat put up 510 points, the Thunder, 490, the Heat ahead by 20, a clean edge leaving no doubt as to which team deserved the NBA Finals trophy.      

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NBA: HEAT VS. THUNDER, GAME FOUR 

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

NBA:   IT’s always a shock to the system, the opposite of what you’ve expected suddenly happening, for instance, the Miami Heat recovering from a 17 point deficit and taking a lead in the fourth quarter of game four of the best-of-seven 2012 NBA Finals. Add, Heat forward LeBron James slipping and getting hurt, and, in spite of that, scoring a three-pointer that tied the game late in that final period.

All was supposed to be the Oklahoma City Thunder and forward Kevin Durant and point guard Russell Westbrook pouring it on as comeback kids in the latter moments of a fourth quarter, besting a tired and going cold Miami Heat. And, Westbrook isn’t the sort to have activated a fourth-quarter game-changing and amateurish foul when a single point could make the difference between winning and losing, especially after putting more than 40 points on the board, but that is what Westbrook committed, causing the Thunder to land beyond chances of a three-pointer tying or taking the game; final outcome, Miami 104, Thunder, 98, placing the Heat ahead of the Thunder, three games to one.

We suggested in past columns that the Heat/Thunder battle for the year’s NBA championship would track a few levels of basketball competition---Level One, the extremely talented, strategically savvy but older Heat playing against the very talented, faster, as strong, also strategic but younger Thunder. Could speed and stamina be trump cards for the Thunder, in addition to the team’s roughly equal skills and sufficient array of smart

(Continued below---)

SPORTS & THE HEROIC, authored by Marvin Leibstone, the Editor and Publisher of this website, strikes with the impact of a sport, illuminating that which can be derived from America’s games for the meaningful life. Of real events, facts and portrayals of well-known athletes, plus segments that are fiction, this book describes the good and the dreadfully awful that make up sports in our time, yet reminding us that sports, as a whole, can empower the very best that any of us has to offer in a complex world . . . Available in hard cover, paperback or as download for Kindle or Nook, ordered on line from barnesandnoble.com, amazon.com, from the book’s publishing house, xlibris.com, or by calling 888-795-4274 ext. 7879, or by obtaining it at a local book store, esp. Barnes & Noble, where if not in stock can be ordered and shipped to a home or office. 

tactics? Level Two, Would teamwork prevail over star power, in that even with stars Durant and Westbrook being capable of record-breaking domination the Thunder functions more as a team executing passes, rebounding, blocking, all taking shots; Level Three, Would the series become a display of “shooting stars,” that is, a competition mainly of the Thunder’s Durant and Westbrook versus the Heat’s LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh?

Of course, we’ve seen a lot of each of the three levels of play, with variations, e.g., last night the Heat’s Mario Chalmers joining his team’s big three as a spoiler in defense and as a shooter (25 points at the finish, same number as Wade. James finished with 26 points and 12 assists plus nine rebounds).

The final periods of games three and four between the Heat and the Thunder have shown that the differences in age and experience are hardly impacting, and that the Heat has the stamina needed for accelerated fourth quarter tempos. But if anything is certain, the game-changing agents of excitement and for jump-ups in the numbers, for fans and for their respective teams, have been James and Wade of the Heat, and Durant and Westbrook of the Thunder, suggesting that an NBA team needs star power to be in the NBA Finals and attain the league’s number one spot.

There are situations in a championship series game when intensity of play and close scoring require transition from an essentially teamwork-dominated playbook to letting one, two or three star shooters “out of the gate,” to become rescuers for that final point that establishes victory. On the other hand, there are moments when the best among star shooters are so well guarded they can only pass and possibly rebound, causing need for the accent to be on teamwork mode, no one taking “hero shots.” NBA franchises like the Denver Nuggets have that teamwork capacity for prevailing against many other franchises and it brought them to the 2012 playoffs. But without a star shooter of Durant-like caliber able to pull them ahead in critical situations, the Nuggets were eliminated in the first round. Well, we may have proof of necessity for both styles of rostering, for five plus reserves playing essentially as a team, sharing the ball, but with star shooters always at the ready for changing a game via their superb individual skills. We could know a lot more about this on Thursday, June 21, and more about whether the Heat's big three are a better combo than the Durant/Westbrook duo, as the Heat challenges the Thunder at the Thunder’s home base, game five.   

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ALL SPORTS (Recent Days)

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

IT’s been an amazing several weeks: the NBA Finals; the French Open (tennis), the U.S. Open (golf); Boxing champion Manny Pacquiao, defeated; European soccer into high gear; NFL training open and QB great Peyton Manning of the Denver Broncos demonstrating as much prowess as ever; the mighty horse “I’ll Have Another” not having “another;” Olympic trials underway and Track & Field looking good for other than Usain Bolt; and, to the dark side, the Colorado Rockies losing 10 of 11 games.  . .  but dominant among team sports, for America anyway, are the Miami Heat/Oklahoma City games for the year’s NBA championship title, which is why this site will post it’s usual Tuesday column on Wednesday, June, 20, after the latest game of the best of seven series.

Meanwhile, readers may want to consider a look at SPORTS & THE HEROIC, a good read if you want a sense of why sports needs to be a dominant segment of our lives, either as athletes or fans. This new book by Marvin Leibstone, Editor & Publisher of this website, can be ordered on line from barnesandnoble.com, amazon.com, from the book’s publishing house, xlibris.com, or by calling 888-795-4274 ext. 7879, or by obtaining it at a local book store, esp. Barnes & Noble, where if not in stock it can be ordered and shipped to a home or office .  .  .  SPORTS & THE HEROIC is an ode to all sports, illuminating that which can be derived from them for the good life. Of real events, facts and portrayals of well-known athletes, plus segments that are fiction, the slim volume (154 pages) pulls no punches, describing the good and the dreadfully awful that make up sports in our time, yet reminding us that sports, as a whole can empower the very best that any of us has to offer in a complex world . . . Available in hard cover, paperback or as download for Kindle or Nook.

FROM FRIDAY’S POSTING (June 15)

MLB:  A Pop Quiz, with answers---

• Which MLB team has delivered the most home runs since the beginning of the 2012 MLB season?  Answer:  The Colorado Rockies, with 78, as of Thursday, June 14. Next highest is the Texas Rangers, with 49, yet the Rangers are in first place of the American League-West, while the Rockies are in fourth place of the National League-West.
• Which NL team leads other NL teams this year re. number of grand slam home runs, and which is tied with the NYY this year for most grand slam homers within either league (five, as of Wednesday, June 13).  Answer:  The Colorado Rockies. 
• Which NL team has the best winning percentage during interleague play since 2006? Answer: The Colorado Rockies, 56 wins/45 losses.
• Which NL team has pounded out the most extra-base hits since the start of the 2012 MLB season? Answer: The Colorado Rockies, with 207, as of June 13. Second best, the St. Louis Cardinals, with194.
• Which MLB team has scored the most runs during “first innings” of 2012 games played, to date? Answer: The Colorado Rockies, with 64. Next highest, the Texas Rangers, with 51.
• Who are the players holding second and third place in the NL this year for most extra-base, thus far? Answer: Carlos Gonzalez, followed by Michael Cuddyer, both of the Colorado Rockies.
• Who is the NL player with the most “doubles” for the 2012 season, to date? Answer: Michael Cuddyer, of the Colorado Rockies.
• Which NL player has the highest total of bases reached since the 2012 season began? Answer: Carlos Gonzalez, of the Colorado Rockies, with 142.
• Which NL player batting third in a line-up game-after-game has the most RBI’s during the current season, as of June 13? Answer: Carlos Gonzalez, of the Colorado Rockies.
• Which MLB player recently surpassed the great NYY, Mickey Mantle, with regard to most career extra-base hits and most RBI’s from them? Answer: Colorado Rockies first baseman, Todd Helton.

So, the above being so, how come the Colorado Rockies dropped to fourth place so rapidly in the NL-West, falling to a 24/38 record and being below .500? In fact, the Rockies are at .393, one of only two MLB teams beneath .400, ranked 14th of the 16 teams within the NL?

Digging deeper, the Rockies just lost two series. That’s six of seven straight losses, the team’s worst losing streak of the year, after six games were lost in a row in May.

There isn’t a single cause behind the Rockies losses, instead there are many, and only one or two can be labeled as being extremely heavy-handed, more than, say, 50 percent of the team’s negatives. For instance, as mentioned on this page on Tuesday, the Rockies starter rotation is weak and there aren’t enough good Rockies relievers to keep a lid on the bleeding that’s caused by eh weak pitching in early innings. The Rockies have one of the worst 2012 ERA’s in the MLB as of yesterday, it’s above 6.0.

Moreover, the Rockies offense is mercurial, hot for a period, then cold, and when hot and filling the bases and sending up home runs it’s rarely enough to offset the high number of runs allowed the opposition by the Rockies starters and relievers.

Too, the team is new and mostly young, not of the line-up that functioned in April, they seem, also as mentioned on Tuesday, as “a work in progress,” not used to playing together, a problem worsened by players being moved to and from field positions as if engaged in musical chairs.

But it’s time for the Rockies to be fully in the present, not in the past, it’s important now for the team to be thinking less about why it’s been losing and to be thinking only about what it takes to win (focusing on the negative keeps it in the team’s collective mind). And with 62 games already over, the team ought to be strategizing for where winning will count the most, e.g., of the season’s remaining games, 42 will be against teams within the NL-W, Colorado’s division. If the Rockies can win the lion’s share of these 42 challenges, the team could rise within the NL-W; and, with at least 30 wins against other NL and AL teams the Rockies could finish the 2012 season without carrying the burden of remorse.

The Rockies may be at a point where all that can be asked is that each player be the best that he can be afield and at the plate, “no more language needed.”

In view of the answers to the above quiz, the Rockies still own skill and power. With that skillfulness and strength applied, and each player continuing to do his best, the Rockies could finish 2012 with heads held high, “to heck with the final numbers!”

END/ml

ALL SPORTS:  book, “SPORTS & THE HEROIC” // MLB:  Colorado Rockies, Unable to Lift The Numbers.

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

SPORTS & THE HEROIC is the title of a new book by Marvin Leibstone, Editor & Publisher of this website. It can be ordered on line from barnesandnoble.com, amazon.com, or from the book’s publishing house, xlibris.com, or by calling 888-795-4274 ext. 7879 .  .  .  SPORTS & THE HEROIC is an ode to all sports, illuminating that which can be derived from them for the good life. Of real events, facts and portrayals of well-known athletes, plus segments that are fiction, the slim volume (154 pages) pulls no punches, describing the good and the dreadfully awful that make up sports in our time, yet reminding us that sports, as a whole, can empower the very best that any of us has to offer in a complex world . . . Available in hard cover, paperback or as download for Kindle or Nook.

MLB:  Here’s a Pop Quiz, with answers---

• Which MLB team has delivered the most home runs since the beginning of the 2012 MLB season?  Answer:  The Colorado Rockies, with 78, as of Thursday, June 14. Next highest is the Texas Rangers, with 49, yet the Rangers are in first place of the American League-West, while the Rockies are in fourth place of the National League-West.
• Which NL team leads other NL teams this year re. number of grand slam home runs, and which is tied with the NYY this year for most grand slam homers within either league (five, as of Wednesday, June 13).  Answer:  The Colorado Rockies. 
• Which NL team has the best winning percentage during interleague play since 2006? Answer: The Colorado Rockies, 56 wins/45 losses.
• Which NL team has pounded out the most extra-base hits since the start of the 2012 MLB season? Answer: The Colorado Rockies, with 207, as of June 13. Second best, the St. Louis Cardinals, with 194.
• Which MLB team has scored the most runs during “first innings” of 2012 games played, to date? Answer: The Colorado Rockies, with 64. Next highest, the Texas Rangers, with 51.
• Who are the players holding second and third place in the NL this year for most extra-base hits? Answer: Carlos Gonzalez, followed by Michael Cuddyer, both of the Colorado Rockies.
• Who is the NL player with the most “doubles” for the 2012 season? Answer: Michael Cuddyer, of the Colorado Rockies.
• Which NL player has the highest total of bases reached since the 2012 season began? Answer: Carlos Gonzalez, of the Colorado Rockies, with 142.
• Which NL player batting third in a line-up game-after-game has the most RBI’s during the current season, as of June 13? Answer: Carlos Gonzalez, of the Colorado Rockies.
• Which MLB player recently surpassed the great NYY, Mickey Mantle, with regard to most career extra-base hits and most RBI’s from them? Answer: Colorado Rockies first baseman, Todd Helton.

So, the above being so, how come the Colorado Rockies dropped to fourth place so rapidly in the NL-West, falling to a 24/38 record and being below .500? In fact, the Rockies are at .393, one of only two MLB teams beneath .400, ranked 14th of the 16 teams within the NL?

Digging deeper, the Rockies just lost two series. That’s six of seven straight losses, the team’s worst losing streak of the year, after six games were lost in a row during May.

There isn’t a single cause behind the Rockies losses, instead there are many, and only one or two can be labeled as being extremely heavy-handed, contributing to more than, say, 50 percent of the team’s negatives. For instance, as mentioned on this page on Tuesday, the Rockies starter rotation is weak and there aren’t enough good Rockies relievers to keep a lid on the bleeding that’s caused by the weak pitching in early innings. The Rockies have one of the worst 2012 ERA’s in the MLB, it’s above 6.0.

Moreover, the Rockies offense is mercurial, hot for a period, then cold, and when hot and filling the bases and sending up home runs it’s rarely enough to offset the high number of runs allowed the opposition by the Rockies starters and relievers.

Too, the team is new and mostly young, not of the line-up that functioned as late as late April, they seem, also as mentioned on Tuesday, as “a work in progress,” not used to playing together, a problem worsened by players being moved to and from field positions as if engaged in musical chairs.

But it’s time for the Rockies to be fully in the present, not in the past, it’s important now for the team to be thinking less about why it’s been losing and to be thinking only about what it takes to win (focusing on the negative keeps it in the team’s collective consciousness). And with 62 games already over, the team ought to be strategizing for where winning will count the most, e.g., of the season’s remaining games, 42 will be against teams within the NL-W, Colorado’s division. If the Rockies can win the lion’s share of these 42 challenges, the team could rise some within the NL-W; and, with at least 30 wins against other NL and AL teams the Rockies could finish the 2012 season without carrying the burden of remorse.

The Rockies may be at a point where all that can be asked is that each player be the best that he can be afield and at the plate, each letting go of thoughts about past games, leaving that to the pundits, to websites like this one.

In view of the answers to the above quiz, the Rockies still own skill and power. With that skillfulness and strength applied, and each player continuing to do his best, the Rockies could finish 2012 with heads held high, “to heck with the final numbers!”

END/ml

MLB:  Colorado Rockies, Down Again // NBA Finals: Miami Heat vs. Oklahoma City Thunder.

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

MLB:  A Los Angeles Angels triple threat that included right fielder, Torri Hunter, first baseman, Albert Pujols, and RHP, C.J. Wilson, clobbered the Colorado Rockies on Friday last---a 7-2 loss. Obvious and favoring the L.A. team was a line-up that hammered away with RBI’s in almost perfect balance with C.J. Wilson’s avalanche of strike-outs. A Rockies previous loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks was worse, a 10-0 debacle. Then the Rockies lost on Saturday, again to the L.A. Angels, 11-5, and on Sunday to the Angels, 10-8.  Knocked down by Arizona without any hits for nine innings, then swept across three outings by the Angels, broomed! well, the Rockies have returned to leaving baseball fields with fewer runs than achieved by opposing ball clubs.  

During the three-game series vs. the Angels, the Rockies put up 15 runs against L.A.’s 28. Not that the Rockies couldn’t sweep another team across 27 innings with an accumulation of 15 runs; it’s that against Arizona and the L.A. Angels, the Rockies starting hurlers hadn’t produced enough “outs” prior to allowing “the hits that have purchased the Colorado pitching staff an ERA above 6.0,” one of the worst staff ERA’s in  the National League.

A reason for Colorado’s frequent losses is more visible now: a starter rotation unable to hold opposing teams back, allowing runs from too many walks, singles, extra-base hits, sacrifice flies resulting in RBI’s, home runs---“a hefty spectrum of that which loses baseball games.” Add that even with some superb hitters, the Rockies line-up has lacked the on-base percentage + RBI consistency needed when the man on the mound is having another bad day.

So---too often missing from the Rockies is hurler/hitter connectivity that is mutually-supportive, where the one can offset the other with their skills and power.

Of course, risks had to be taken. How else could Rockies manager Jim Tracy and pitching coach, Bob Apodaca, learn what their new starters could do without testing them, letting them go to the edge, having them rotate as if of an experienced staff. Analysts have had the impression that in several Rockies losses, Tracy and Apodaca refrained from taking starters out of a game when the earliest signals of deterioration showed, waiting instead for the walks and the hits to occur.

Other analysts have suggested that roster manipulations have continued to produce new Rockies teams, that is, players afield adjusting to new positions, not accustomed to working together when in those positions. Shifting a lead-off batter suddenly to a different position in a line-up reconfigures the role of escalated power in baseball, not always to advantage. Frequent shifts like this can win games now and then, yet can turn teams into a constant “work in progress,” never a formulated and experienced ball club from players having worked together often enough in the same offense and defense positions, a possible outcome being more losses than wins.

The Rockies five game winning streak in May has been blotted out by the team’s recent five straight losses. The Rockies are now 24/35, still below .500 and still in fourth place of the NL-West. Tonight begins another inter-league series, Rockies vs. the Oakland A’s across three games, a team that is in last place of its division (26/35). Afterward, the Rockies will be on the road for three games each vs. the Detroit Tigers, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Texas Rangers. Of the three opposing teams, only the Rangers are consistently high-caliber, holding first place in the American League-West. The Tigers are at 28/32, and the Phillies are also ahead of the Rockies, 29/33. In the NL, the Rockies are third from the bottom, above the San Diego Padres and the Chicago Cubs, each with 20 wins and 40 and 41 losses respectively. Back from the road, the Rockies will be challenged by the Padres. To be noted here is that of its 15 upcoming games, 12 will be against either par- or sub-par teams, an opportunity for the Rockies to achieve a slow climb upward with more wins than losses, providing that individual starter adjustments maintain, and that the Rockies line-up anchors well to hitting-mode.

NBA:    The Miami Heat/Oklahoma City Thunder NBA Finals will be more than a contest deciding which of the two teams can win four of the planned seven games. It will also compete the NBA’s two best basketball players of the year, Miami’s LeBron James against Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant, deciding whether the more experienced and hardened athlete (James) can best an equally talented but less experienced, possibly less canny athlete (Durant).

Also competed will be the joint-venturing of the Heat's James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh trio vs. the Thunder's Durant and Russell Westbrook duo. Too, a big metro- franchise that has been to the NBA Finals before (Miami) will compete against a small market franchise (Oklahoma City), a team that hasn’t been to the NBA Finals.

Moreover, a team that relies primarily upon star power tactics (Miami’s big trio, led by James) will play against a franchise that shares star power tactics with successive plays that are mostly teamwork-dependent (Oklahoma City), lending more data for solving the question as to whether a team must have “a super star” in order to win a championship.

Our take is that hardened and explosive defense on both sides will take the series to seven games, the last game being won by whoever has the leading edge in that final quarter, the Heat’s James, Wade and Bosh trio, or James alone, as in last week’s Eastern Conference win vs. the Boston Celtics, or the Thunder’s Durant/Westbrook show.

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NBA: Thunder; Heat, or the Celtics?   

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

NBA:    The Oklahoma City Thunder grabs a lead early on and usually stays ahead. When this doesn’t happen, the Thunder comes from behind quickly, restoring a leading position. So, what’s their mojo about? What is it that has taken the Thunder so far? How have they come to be Western Conference champions? Certain phrases come to mind: “Keeping it simple, with nothing added, nothing that can be done without,” and: “Holding it all together.”  By the former is meant “elimination of movements that aren’t essential to the team’s primary purpose,” which is to move the basketball efficiently and score points, and prevent the other team from doing so.

            In effect, there’s a major Thunder focus, one idea: sending that basketball through the hoop as quickly as possible, thus “economy of movement,” nothing extra thrown in, and making sure that the oppositon fails at that job.

As to the latter phrase cited above, by shooting, rebounding, blocking, assisting, passing and outpacing the opposition, all above margins of excellence, the Thunder remains hard to define; they’ve become “a blur of everything that’s right,” while so many other teams can be characterized by a star shooter who carries most of the weight, or by a center/forward’s exceptional height, or by an unstoppable duo or trio, allowing clear definition of what they can do and cannot do. Revealed among those teams are signatures of their strengths and vulnerabilities, of that which a team like the Thunder can weaken and prevent. 

Yes, the Thunder’s Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are a cut above their teammates, but they are rarely disconnects; they link within the confines of established and even improvised plays. In other words, the Thunder’s well-roundedness, the team’s sharpened “multiple” skill sets, keeps them from being “figured out”, from being “psyched,” making it hard for opposing teams to know exactly what to attack.

As one analyst puts it, “the Thunder places many tigers in the ring, all smart and quick, all exceptionally efficient.”

However, the Thunder isn’t perfection---during the Western Conference finals, the team fell behind the San Antonio Spurs by two games, prior to winning the four that qualified them for the 2011/12 NBA Finals, which will be against the Eastern Conference winning franchise (either the Boston Celtics or the Miami Heat as a result of Saturday’s game seven of the Eastern Conference series). When the Thunder loses a game it’s from total team deflation, rarely the fault of any one player or because of a single player’s absence. A rational take is that probably any combination of today’s Eastern Conference players would have a hard time stopping the Thunder, even if Boston’s Kevin Garnett , Ray Allen and Paul Pierce were to join LeBron James, Dywane Wade and Chris Bosh of the Miami Heat as a five + one combo.

The Thunder may not have as many experienced stars as the Celtics and Miami have, but they appear to have a level of consistency greater than that of the Celtics or the Heat. Across the 2011/12 regular season and into the post-season, the Thunder gathered 20 straight wins, with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook averaging high double digit points per game as a result of “exemplary teamwork,” i.e, fast feeds from blockers and rebounders, and reverse role action, e.g., in a single game vs. the Spurs, Durant completing 14 rebounds, many for effective assists and passes.

Eastern Conference. Last night, the Heat pulverized the Celtics, 98-79, LeBron James surpassing previous post-season performances, evading the Celtics defense and accruing 45 points. A similar LeBron-led offense on Saturday could make it difficult for the Celtics to obtain the Eastern Conference crown. But it wasn’t just LeBron’s masterful drives and his shooting that put the Heat so far ahead of the Celtics on Thursday. Boston’s Paul Pierce was kept from contributing effectively---only nine ppg, and Boston’s Kevin Garnett couldn’t put up the shielding meant to stop LeBron.

So---it’s at the wire now, game seven, and key for a Celtics win is holding LeBron to no more than 30 ppg. For the Heat, it’s helping LeBron repeat Thursday’s performance.

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NBA: Conference Finals // All Sports & The Dynamics of Change  

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

          NBA:    IT’s still anyone’s guess as to whether it’ll be the Eastern Conference’s Boston Celtics or Miami Heat playing the Western Conference’s Oklahoma City Thunder or San Antonio Spurs during the NBA’s 2011/12 championship series. Right now, Oklahoma City has three games won against San Antonio’s two, and it’s two wins apiece for Boston and Miami.

          We’ve been saying that the competition among the four teams is also about the values of star power opposed to less or more teamwork, which certainly characterizes the Thunder and the Spurs competition; and within the Eastern Conference, it’s a battle between two triumvirates, as if three royals and two plain but high-numbered cards make the full hand needed for glory in professional basketball (this has defined the Celtics and the Heat long before the conference finals began; think: Boston’s Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce facing Miami’s LeBron James, Dywane Wade and Chris Bosh).

          The above-cited arrangement of the chess-pieces hasn’t altered significantly for the East or Western conference post-season teams, and dramatic changes are unlikely even if both sides go to a seventh game, when a surprise tactic can be the one winning factor. Here’s the remaining schedule for the conference finals that are bleeding uncertainty profusely with regard to a projected finish, more so than during previous years:

EAST: Tonight, 8:30 ET; Thursday, June 7; Saturday, June 9

WEST: Wednesday, June 6; Friday, June 8   

          ALL SPORTS --- You can get to thinking, “Same ol’ business,” from an individual athlete being MVP time and again, or from a team listed in the top three in its division month after month, year after year. Then something happens, a new face champions a particular sport, the expected loser revs it up and becomes a winner---a team that’s been marginal for years climbs the ladder rapidly, setting records. Example: a horse called “I’ll Have Another” wins the Kentucky Derby and then the Preakness and this Saturday, June 9, could win the Belmont Stakes and be the 34^th winner of horse racing’s coveted Triple Crown, when odds have favored many other horses, “I’ll Have Another” having been entered by an owner classified as a dropback, as horse racing’s version of the irrelevant participant, allegedly dirty re. drugs, getting in his own way, seeing the bottom more than the top.

          Year after year, Formula One racing driver, Mark Weber, finished in the bottom half among the many F1-qualified drivers. Mid-decade, this veteran of F1 went to a new car team, soon winning races and commanding up front positions along the grid, taking first place at Monaco. Weber is now a leading driver of a sport that for years seemed to be the same race repeated every two weeks, with, after crossing a finish line, the same win, place and show drivers going to the podium. For the six races held this year since the F1 Grand Prix season began in March, there have been six different winners. Not very long ago, German-born F1 driver, Michael Schumacher, was the sport’s annual champion six years in a row, usually with the same second and third place finishers alongside him at the podium. Since Schumacher’s first retirement, there have been more than six annual F-1 win combinations, enough to bring F1 back to the U.S. after an absence across several seasons. This year’s U.S. F1 race will take place November 18, at Austin, Texas (check TV’s Speed Channel). 

          Within the NBA, the Oklahoma City Thunder, a small market team built from remnants of the former and declining Seattle Sonics, reached the post-season two years in a row and could be the 2011/12 NBA national championship team. Unexpectedly, the Washington Nationals are a leading MLB team this year. No-one thought that the Detroit Lions would recover as quickly from being one of the worst teams in the NFL, or that the Boston Red Sox would ever win a World Series, and until a short while ago whoever heard of tennis player, Novak Djokovic, or, for that matter, track star, Usain Bolt?

          As to what causes these sudden and surprising shifts in sports, the reasons could surpass a family of nine’s monthly grocery list: on the dark side for the individual athlete breaking records, it could be from performance enhancers or from another form of cheating, and on the bright side it could be out of clean leaps in physical and/or psychological maturity, or from a new coach taking the athlete in new directions.  .  .  For a team suddenly at the cusp of winning, it could be from a pair of outstanding draft picks and/or trades, or from changes in leadership and game-day rostering, maybe from differences in scheduling, or from better training in the off-season, or possibly off of a revised playbook.

          More than likely, the quick burst from the bottom to the top includes multiple reasons why, some of which the athlete or a team’s leadership will remain unaware of, and this is what helps to make any sport an amazing story, a narrative of ups and downs that viewers can identify with, in that all persons experience streams of ups and downs, and, yes, always gratifying is when someone, a small group or a large organization that’s been down for a long while is suddenly rising to the top, like the Colorado Rockies having won seven of the team's last eight games, which included a four game series sweep versus the Houston Astros, followed by a three-game series win vs. the Los Angeles Dodgers (this after suffering multiple losing streaks).

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MLB: COLORADO TURNABOUT // NBA: CONFERENCE FINALS

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

MLB:   Sometimes it’s the undercard that’s the better fight, and quite often rear-of-the-pack vehicles provide the more interesting, more exciting NASCAR race. It can be that way during a baseball season, two bottom-of-the-pile teams fighting it out for a better standing, which is what the last four games between the Colorado Rockies and the Houston Astros seems to have been about, each in fourth place of their respective divisions, the Rockies finishing with its first sweep of the season---four straight wins, while the Astros turned out numerous base runners and home runs in spite of losing the four games.

And when the last game of a series sweep is one of the winning team’s best performances of the season, well, it’s special, and perhaps the start of a climb toward and then above .500. That’s where the currently 21-29/.420 Rockies ought to be seeing themselves now, and surely they were feeling the turnabout in the first two innings of game four versus the Astros, after putting up five runs in the first and four in the second.

It was indeed a hitting party, Hollywood couldn’t have scripted it better. Bottom half of the first inning and back as lead-off batter, Colorado center-fielder, Dexter Fowler, walked, not especially dynamic but then infielder, Marco Scutaro, banged a line drive, reaching first base as Fowler made it to third. Next to the plate went left fielder, Carlos Gonzalez, who belted a home run that sent Fowler and Scutaro across the plate, score: 3-0, Rockies (this was Gonzalez’ fourth homer of the series and fourth for four at-bats, his third RBI-homer of the series).

Soon right fielder, Michael Cuddyer, placed a line drive past second base for a single, and afterward Rockies first baseman, Todd Helton, delivered a double, pushing Cuddyer home. Next batter, catcher Willin Rosario, became the Rockies first out of the game, but infielder, Jordan Pacheco, followed with a double, sending Helton home, Pacheco soon stealing to third base. The next two batters were the half inning’s additional outs.

Bottom of the second, Fowler obtained another walk, soon stole to second base. Afterward, Gonzalez walked, too, unable to produce a major league record of five HR’s from five at-bats. Not unlucky for the Rockies, however, Gonzalez reached second base behind Fowler’s rush to third, both spurred on from a wild Astro throw. Then Cuddyer doubled and Fowler and Gonzalez crossed the plate, the Rockies with seven runs now. Rosario followed with a single, moving Cuddyer home, and next Pacheco hit for a double and Rosario crossed the plate, Rockies ahead with nine. The team’s tenth run happened in the fourth inning, from a Cuddyer line drive that sent Gonzalez home. The eleventh Colorado run was a Scutaro homer.

And during most of this, Colorado RHP hurler, Jeremy Guthrie, held the Astros back, final score, Rockies 11, Astros, 6. Relieved in the seventh inning, Guthrie recorded the win, his third for the season, a downside of his performance the Astro homers.

That adage “If it aint broke don’t fix it” lost its edge as the Rockies kept sinking below .500, having lost 16 games in May, which included three losing streaks---three straight, then five in a row, later six losses in a row, enough to build rumors of a curse and surely evidence for a slew of fixes to occur. Makeover time arrived before the Rockies were to face the Astros.

Seen during the Colorado/Houston series was a Rockies team more young than old---of the nine players facing the Astros on Thursday night, observed were Scutaro at shortstop (subbing for injured Troy Tulowitzki, out for around 15 games), Cuddyer, Rosario, Pacheco, infielder Dj LeMahieu, and Guthrie, each in their first season with the Rockies, joined by veterans Fowler, Gonzalez and Helton. Add from the bullpen, Matt Reynolds and Josh Roenicke, relatively new to frequent mound work. Not that the veterans aren’t major contributors. Rather, the newer Rockies were, especially in game four vs. the Astros, base-runners for hitters like Gonzalez and Helton to send home, or they were catalysts allowing Helton as an extra-base hitter to cross the plate. This was baseball as it should be played, providing the game that fans pay in advance to see. Among other Rockies pitchers for other days? The young Christian Friedrich, and Drew Pomeranz.

It may be that the Rockies youth-dominant line-up + young pitching crew is the solution to Colorado’s below .500 problem. Then again, maybe not! But staying with it as the Rockies play three games against the Los Angeles Dodgers starting today, then three versus the Arizona Diamondbacks, is probably a wise “. . . don’t fix it” application, especially staying with the line-up that purchased 11 runs on Thursday. Because the Dodgers are 11 games ahead of the Rockies in the National League-West, and the Diamondbacks but two ahead of the Rockies in third place, these six games present a make or break curve in the season that could make the difference between the Rockies being a winning or rear-of-the-pack franchise by September.          

NBA:  Though still too early to tell with great confidence which conference teams will be vying for the upcoming NBA national championship, to be kept in mind is that while the San Antonio Spurs are ahead of the Oklahoma City Thunder two games to one, the Thunder has, to date, outscored the Spurs across their three games, 311 points to 303. If number of total points scored across a number of games were to be the criteria for winning, the Thunder would be the leading Western Conference franchise (as of now). After two games, the Miami Heat leads with 208 points, to Boston’s 190, a differential signaling Heat dominance (as of now). In a single game, the Spurs lost from a score below 90, and the Celtics lost a single game to the Heat with the lowest scores from among these conference teams (to date), 79.

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