The French Open (Men’s) // MLB: Colorado Rockies “On The Slide;” NL/AL Standings.

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French Open   ---   Tennis great from Switzerland, Roger Federer, has won 17 Grand Slam events but hasn’t owned the French Open as many times as Spain’s Rafael Nadal, who has seven wins at Paris, interrupted in 2005 when Federer grabbed the title. Recently, Nadal defeated Federer at the Italian Open, and an unimproved Federer could lose again to Nadal at Paris in coming days.

But the Swiss master of smarts, power + precision has risen smoothly in two French Open rounds in five days; he’s “back on game,” if you will.

So, Team Nadal has reason to re-think strategy. It’s unlikely that Nadal will be facing the same Federer that opposed him at Italy.

Also at Paris, Nadal’s to be concerned about number one in the men’s standings, Serbia’s Novak Djokovic, thought by many analysts to be best in the world today and winner of six of his last seven matches---a French Open crown hasn’t landed on Djokovic’s resume yet.

The record says that there’s no dark horse, no fourth athlete capable of causing arguably the world’s three best tennis players to be eliminated at Paris. Of course, that’s to be seen---a few years ago, no-one suspected that Djokovic could be that dark horse at any Grand Slam event.

More conspicuous now is that if a largely unknown player suddenly leaps forward as a serious challenge to Federer, Nadal and/or Djokovic, it’s unlikely that he will be an American.

It’s easily noted from a brief look at world standings and U.S. men tennis players, that the Americans are far behind the best of the best, and it’s been that way for a long while. It’s many years since American men hit the finals not just at the French Open but at the Australian, Wimbledon and U.S. Open events “regularly,” e.g., the last U.S. male player to lead in the world for more than a brief period and to win at the French Open was Andre Agassi, in 1995. From the 1970’s until the late 1990’s, the seven best of world tennis were, in succession and overlapping, (alphabetical order:) Agassi, Arthur Ashe, Jimmy Connors, Jim Courier, Ivan Lendl, John McEnroe, Pete Sampras.

Not that the American men of the pro- tennis circuit are way below the margin; several are within the top twenty-five percent. But, why no U.S. male consistently at the summit, as in years gone by? Reasons given never seem to be steel-and-concrete. If true, they appear to be that which could be put asunder easily by U.S. players and their coaches early on, for instance, these excuses: the Cold War freed East European and Russians to nurture their talent; athletes from other countries train harder; Americans live and train in environments loaded with distractions; athletes outside America are more motivated to earn the money that pro- tennis provides. This writer believes that these reasons may exist in a few cases and that they are minor determinants, but that that no-one has figured out precisely the main reason(s) why the U.S. near-dynasty re. men and world tennis has dissipated, while women’s singles hasn’t fallen back drastically, e.g., in recent years Serena Williams and Venus Williams ranking high repeatedly, defeating some of the best non-U.S. women tennis players ever.  .  .  For more about the French Open, scroll to the bottom of this page.

Colorado Rockies   ---   A fan writes, “Seems the Rockies are two teams, and you never know which one you’re going to get to watch.” A safe assumption is that the writer is addressing a perceived Rockies A, the team that wins games, and a Rockies B, the team that loses games, which would be an easy assumption to prove if the rosters for each were mostly different, but it’s usually the same guys winning and the same guys losing. Of course, reasons for this inconsistency within any baseball organization are hard to discover and put solutions to.

Some managers, coaches and players keep saying that you just have to ride out the bad days, put them behind you mentally and do your best next game. Others decide that their team needs total makeover, so they reconstruct line-ups, change rotations, pull players up from the minors, send a few down. Sometimes this works, other times it doesn’t.

Right now, after winning enough games to return to second place with the NL West behind the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Rockies are back at third position, having lost three of four games to the AL’s Houston Astros. What’s that, the 17-37/.315 Astros, the second worst team in the majors? Last night, it was 7-5, Astros ahead after the Rockies had established a 3-0 lead through the third inning. Sixth inning, the Astros developed six runs, which the Rockies could only match with two in subsequent innings.

Maybe the Rockies aren’t so much the team of vastly different sides suggested by many observers. Perhaps the same characteristics that seem to pull the Rockies down and cause losses also exist when the Rockies win games. For example, most notable when the Rockies are losing are the runners in scoring position who never get to score, those left on base as a third out occurs and the Rockies must return to the field. But there’s a tendency to forget about this issue ever existing when during one or two half-innings a Rockies home run or extra base hit brings in a run or two and the Rockies start leading, maybe they win the game---yet at the end of the won game there are as many as seven, maybe eight players having been left on base from third outs. Win or lose, the Rockies need to overcome that inability to push runners around the bases and home.

Too, in wins the reliance has seemed to be on the heavier hitters, OF Carlos Gonzalez, IF Troy Tulowitzki, catcher Wilin Rosario. This has also been a factor when the Rockies have lost games, the truth of it being that baseball’s very best hitters can’t always be depended upon for the HR or that extra-base shot linked to RBI’s.

Cited above, then, are the weakest characteristics within the Rockies offense, and they exist within Colorado’s wins as well as during the team’s losses---an argument can be made that one’s offense is only as good as it’s weakest parts.

As for pitching rotation, there have been some great successive innings by Rockies starters this year, but some starters lose efficiency sooner than others and some more erratically than others. For whatever reason, when some Rockies starters begin fading it’s rarely gradual; they drop down the ladder from rung 10 to zero in a matter of a few batters being faced: no more strikes from them, just hits given away, often the home run.

Sure, fans like to see the good starter accrue enough innings so the hurler can get credit for a win, and a manager wants to believe that the sudden faltering is going to go away quickly and sometimes that is what happens, but in too many cases the Rockies starter fails to recover and the manager porbably wishes he’d been less optimistic and taken him out sooner. Though not always a prescription for losing, this delay pushes a team in that direction.

Yes, relieving a pitcher is a judgment call. Last season, then Rockies manager, Jim Tracy, thought he could fix starter fallback by limiting starters to a specific number of pitches, with a reliever in at that number no matter how well the starter may have been doing. An extreme approach, such also relieved the manager of having to make a judgment call, so a lot of good arms were wasted. Rockies current and perceptive manager, Walt Weiss, prefers the role of decider here, and so a refining of his focus for earlier + tougher mound-replacement decision-making is probably at the top of his agenda.

MLB   --- Only one MLB National League franchise that failed to finish the 2012 season above .500 is today leading a division, the NL West’s’ 30-23/.566 Arizona  Diamondbacks, and only one NL franchise that finished the 2012 season above .600 and close to the top of a division is now holding a last place slot, the NL West’s’ currently below .500 Los Angeles Dodgers, 22 wins, 29 losses.

The two other NL division leading teams were also high flyers in 2012---the NL Central’s 35-17/.673 St. Louis Cardinals and the NL East’s 32-21/.604 Atlanta Braves. Presently, the Cardianls are leading both leagues.  

Within the American League, the only franchise that completed 2012 under .500 and that leads a division today is the AL East’s 33-22/.600 Boston Red Sox. But no AL franchise that finished above .600 and within a division was either first, second or even third place last year is today a last place club.

Leading the AL West today are the 33-20/.623 Texas Rangers, and leading the AL Central are the 29-23/.558 Detroit Tigers---these teams finished at the top last year, reaching the ALC playoffs.

Other upward turns from last year are the NL West’s’ 28-26/.519 Colorado Rockies (3d place, behind 2d place San Francisco Giants), the NL Central’s 34-20/.630 Pittsburgh Pirates (2d place behind the Cardinals), the AL Central’s 29-24/.547 Cleveland Indians (2d place), franchises that finished in MLB’s bottom half last year.

So, at 50+ 2013 games played per team today, we can argue safely that at the very top of the standings baseball seems a lot like last year, while beneath it’s a much different set of games. Not a complete spray of Deja Vu going on, unless you are the Miami Marlins and the Houston Astros, last place teams in 2012, same as now.    

More re. French Open   (Revised from previous posting)---   The French Open began Sunday, May 26, and is the second of four Grand Slam tennis events after the Australian Open. The Fr. Open always occurs in late May, then comes Wimbledon (London, U.K.), afterward the U.S. Open (NYC). Here’s data for anyone wanting to be other than clueless about the Paris happening---

The Fr. Open has been around since 1891, an Open since the late 1920’s. It is always held at Paris, now at the city of lights’ “Roland Garros” arena.”

In 1928, the Fr. Open went from “grass” to “red clay” and has remained the latter.

Among the 16 countries that have had winners in the men’s Fr. Open since WW2, France is not among them. Since WW2, 12 of the 16 have had multiple Fr. Open winners in the men’s category, the most belonging to Australia and the United States, 11 each (Not number of wins per player, rather number of players with multiple wins). Next is Sweden, 10, the United Kingdom being tied at the bottom with two multiple winners along with Argentina and Egypt.

Among the 19 countries with multiple Fr. Open winners in the women’s category, France is among them---seven wins, though the U.S. is highest in the category with 13 multiple female winners since the Fr. Open went from only amateur to all-inclusive in the late 1920’s. Next is Australia, Belgium, Germany and Yugoslavia, tied at four players having multiple wins.

Since WW2, the Fr. Open men’s competitor with the most wins is Spain’s Rafael Nadal---seven victories. Next, Sweden’s Bjorn Borg, with six wins. The American male with the most Fr. Open wins is Ivan Lendl, three (1984, 1986, 1987).

The woman player with the most Fr. Open wins is America’s Chris Evert, with seven. Next since WW2 is Germany’s Stefi Graff, with six. Third is Australia’s Margaret Court, with five wins. America’s Martina Navratalova is tied with four others at two wins.

U.S. men that have won the Fr. Open one or more times in the past 50 years, they are Ivan Lendl, Michael Chang, Jim Courier and Andre Agassi, who is the last American male to win the Fr. Open (1999).

U.S. women who have won the Fr. Open one or more times---Chris Evert, Martina Navratalova, Jennifer Capriati, and Serena Williams.

The only U.S. Fr. Open women winners since year 2000 are Jennifer Capriati, 2001, and Serena Williams, 2002, having defeated sister, Venus Williams, in the Final match-up.

The 2012 holder of the Fr. Open women’s title is Russia’s Maria Sharapova. 

Starting 2005, and except for 2009 when the event went to Switzerland’s Roger Federer, Spain’s Rafael Nadal has won the Fr. Open every year. .  .  After having defeated Federer recently at the Italian Open, analysts are suggesting that Nadal will win the Fr. Open again this year, providing, of course, that top world player, Serbia’s Novak Djokovic, isn’t the leading player at Roland Garros---no Fr. Open on his list of wins yet.  

Among women players expected to reach the semi- and finals this year, analysts are saying that America’s Serena Williams will be among them and has what it takes to win the women’s title. This weekend, her sister Venus, a seven time Grand Slam event winner but never a Fr. Open winner went down in the first round, losing to a player ranked 40^th among world players.

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