MLB: AL or NL? Which Is Best? . . Colorado Rockies, Out From The Gate // NBA: Standings & The Playoffs // Denver Nuggets, "the Hard Games Up Ahead"

sports-notebook.blogspot.com . . . 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 each week. Ed., Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner. . . // . . MLB: AL or NL? Which Is Best? . . Colorado Rockies, Out From The Gate // NBA: Standings & the Playoffs; Denver Nuggets---“the Hard Games Up Ahead.” . . . // . . MLB--- LOOKING only at MLB-2013 regular season standings with regard to wins over losses, we can see readily that nine of the top 15 of 30 MLB franchises were from the American League, suggesting that the AL is superior to the National League when it comes to wins over losses. And, that five of MLB-2013’s bottom 15 clubs having been from the AL seems to support the implication, until we note that three of MLB-2013’s bottom five clubs were from the AL, the Minnesota Twins, the Chicago White Sox, the Houston Astros. Combined, the three lost 306 games during MLB-2013, more losses than the 286 wins totaled by MLB-2013’s top three AL clubs, the Boston Red Sox, the Detroit tigers and the Oakland Athletics. Too, from a glance at the top 10 instead of the top half of MLB-2013 we can observe that six teams were from the NL, four the AL, which lifts the NL total standings some. But---comparing total number of MLB-2013 wins of the nine AL clubs of the top 15 with the top nine NL clubs of all of MLB-2013 regular games played, we come quite close to parity---817 AL games won versus 786 NL wins, the NL having a deficit of only 31 wins. Want to go deeper? We can compare total number of MLB-2013 wins achieved by the AL’s 15 franchises with that of the NL’s 15. This gives us a turnabout, 1,192 AL wins and 1,211 NL wins. Is there a lion vs. mouse situation here? No way, again there’s just a small deficit, the AL behind now but by only 19 games. . . // Colorado Rockies---DURING the first month of MLB-2014, the Colorado Rockies will face seven teams, four of them from its own division. The four are the National League West’s Arizona Diamondbacks, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants and the L.A. Dodgers, in effect, the rest of the division that the Rockies will fight to stay atop of. Only one of the seven April, 2014 challenges will be versus an interleague team, the American League Central’s MLB-2013’s 63-39 Chicago White Sox, third from the bottom of both leagues. The remaining two are vs. the NL East’s MLB 2013 62-100 Miami Marlins, second from the bottom of both leagues, and the NL East’s MLB-2013 73-89 Philadelphia Phillies, eighth from the bottom during MLB-2013. What the four NL West clubs have in common relative to competition vs. the Rockies is that each finished the MLB 2013 regular season with win/loss records better than that achieved by the 74-88 Colorado franchise, highest the 92-70 Dodgers, next the 81-81 Arizona Diamondbacks, followed by the 76-86 Giants and the 76-86 Padres. Of these games, six will be against the DB’s, five vs. the Giants, five vs. the Padres. That’s 16 challenges that the Rockies would not just want to win but also to use as more “baseball university” than afforded by Spring Training, as schooling in the vulnerabilities of each of the teams that the Rockies would want to defeat more than any others as MLB-2014 progresses, though only one, the Dodgers, made the top 15 within both leagues during MLB-2013. The Rockies were tenth from the bottom last season, and so 18 games behind the Dodgers. But until May 9, the Rockies won’t be facing either the St. Louis Cardinals, the Atlanta Braves, the Cincinnati Reds or the Pittsburgh Pirates. These were the top four National League clubs for MLB-2013 re. wins over losses, each having won more than 90 games. Except for the May 9-12 three-game series against the MLB-2013 90-72 Reds and a June 9-12 series vs. the MLB-2013 96-66 Braves, the Rockies won’t be seeing another of last year’s top NL clubs until June 30, when it faces the MLB NL-2013 fifth best team, the NL East’s 86-76 Washington Nationals. In the interim, the Rockies will again face NL West teams, the DB’s, the Giants and the Padres. All of this allows a lengthy time span, more than 30 games, many against teams with records only a slight degree higher and some lower than that built up by the Rockies last year, surely an opportunity for the Rockies to gather momentum and bring skills to the hilt of possibility as it wins or loses games. . . // NBA---IN the past week, two of the six division leading NBA clubs advanced a game without having accrued a loss. Meanwhile, two advanced by a win although they lost one, and the remaining two lost a game without later attaining a win. But all are in the same top position as last week, and all are now playoff candidates; and, the East’s Atlantic 38-29 Toronto Raptors are still the only leading team ahead by fewer than five wins, still subject to a takeover by the 34-31 Brooklyn Nets. Ironically, the team with the most wins in the West, the 51-16 San Antonio Spurs, which is now just behind the East’s top team, the 50-18 Indiana Pacers for best within both conferences, they have that five game division edge, over the 45-22 Houston Rockets, while the Pacers still have the best lead within the entire NBA, 12 wins above the 38-30 Chicago Bulls. The East’s Southeast top team, the 46-20 Miami Heat, are close with 11 wins ahead of the 35-22 Washington Wizards. If we go only by recorded wins to date, it’s clear that within the West the Spurs will defeat the now Northwest Division leading club, the 50-18 Oklahoma City Thunder, and within the East the Pacers will take down the Miami Heat, and the outcome of the NBA finals will have the Pacers on top. Today, the Pacers are four wins ahead of the Heat. But all this is implied from numbers only, and the playoffs begin as a clean slate, even if top teams are awarded a first round Bye. Anyway, a fact about most about-to-occur-happenings is that anything could happen. . . // DENVER NUGGETS---TWO teams down, six teams and eight games to go, and the Denver Nuggets could take it all or lose three or fewer by only a few points per. The subject here is a list of teams that were selected from games that the Nuggets would have to play from March 14 until April 16, when NBA-2013/14 ends for the Nuggets. Four of the teams are leading their divisions, the rest are in second place slots. As reported in a previous column, the Nuggets defeated two of the clubs, the Miami Heat 111-107, on March 14, and the L.A. Clippers, 110-100, on March 17. Up next for the Nuggets, then, are the teams left on that list of top NBA teams, games against the Washington Wizards (Sunday, March 23), followed by games versus the Thunder, the Spurs x 2, the Rockets x 2, the Clippers again, and the Golden State Warriors x 2. Between these contests will be games vs. lesser teams, which the Nuggets have a fair chance of defeating. Presently, the 31-37 Nuggets are in fourth place of the West’s Northwest, largely from injuries = best starters unable to play. The Nuggets may still be in this position on April 16. However, by defeating or coming close to defeating the first and second place teams scheduled, such will reflect a Nuggets team that is above the margin and worthy of much respect as the season closes. END/ml