MLB: NL Central // NBA: Standings; Denver Nuggets & "the Big Nine."

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: NL Central // NBA: Standings; Denver Nuggets & “the Big Nine.” . . . // . . MLB---IT’s hard to imagine a 2014 MLB division race led by other than the NL Central’s St. Louis Cardinals. Not only because the Cardinals finished year-2013 with the highest number of wins within the NL and tied for the most wins MLB-wide with the AL’s Boston Red Sox, both at 97-65, but also because the Cardinals finished 2013 seven wins above the Central’s number two team, the 90-72 Cincinnati Reds, which finished the season 10th MLB-wide. No doubt, all this evolved from a powerful Cardinals line-up that is possibly best within the NL, and a pitching staff likely to provide high strikeout consistency during 2014. The Cardinal’s OF Matt Holiday, IF Matt Adams, IF Matt Carpenter and catcher Yodier Molina, each has a batting average above .300, while the Cardinals hurlers have a combined 2013 ERA below 3.5, and during 2013 right-hand hurlers Adam Wainwright, Shelby Miller and Lance Lyons had 19, 15 and 15 wins respectively. . . But the Reds or the Pittsburgh Pirates could finish in second position, each relying heavily on a super ballplayer, IF Joey Votto of the Reds, OF Andrew McCutcheon of the Pirates. Votto finished the season with a .305 BA and 24 home runs, McCutcheon as the NL’s MVP and a .317 BA + 21 HR’s. Comparing the rest of the line-ups of each team, there’s rough parity. Also, each team has three pitchers with double digit 2013 wins, best for the Reds the 14 wins each from right handers Mike Leake and Matt Lotos, both with ERA’s under 3.5, the Pirates having LH Francisco Uriano’s 16 wins, ERA 3.0. Reds or Pirates at number two is, by our thinking, too close to call, anyway leaving the Milwaukee Brewers (74-88) and the Chicago Cubs (66-96) anchored at bottom again . . . //. . NBA---GIVEN the rate of wins over losses among five of the six division leading franchises and the leads that the five have over second place teams within their divisions, what the very top of the NBA 2013/14 regular season finish will look like is easy to figure out, the Western Conference offering the now Northwest Division’s 49-15 Oklahoma City Thunder, the Southeast Division the 50-16 San Antonio Spurs, the Pacific Division’s 48-20 L.A. Clippers, and the Eastern Conference surely the 45-19 Miami Heat and the 50-17 Indiana Pacers and either the 37-28 Raptors or the 34-31 Nets from the East’s Atlantic Division, in that the Raptors now have but a three game lead over the Nets. The five likely end-of-season division leading teams cited herein have leads of six and more wins over their second placers, two among them leading their respective conferences, the West’s Spurs, the East’s Pacers, the Spurs leading the entire NBA from one less loss than accrued by the Pacers. Among the six division last place teams, only one has won a game in the past week, the West’s Southwest New Orleans pelicans, going to 27 from 26 wins. Worst still are the East’s Central 13-54 Milwaukee Bucks, causing its division to have the widest gap between first and last place, the Pacers being at 50 wins . . . DENVER NUGGETS---AS reported in our last column (March 14, scroll to below), of the 18 games that the Nuggets would play until their season ends on April 16, nine listed against NBA division first and second place franchises, in sequence the Heat, the Clippers, the Washington Wizards, the Thunder, the Spurs twice (back-to-back), the Houston Rockets x 2 (back-to-back), the Golden State Warriors, the Clippers again, and, on April 16, the Warriors again. On the morning of March 14, the Nuggets were 28-36. Today, the Nuggets are 30-37, having defeated two of the teams on the list of nine, the Miami Heat 111-107, and last night the Clippers, also on the list, 110-100. Our take here is that there is a best revenge against three awful losing streaks. The Nuggets suffered an eight-game L-streak in December, a five-game L-streak in February and a six-game L-streak across February and early March, all delivering the Nuggets onto the West’s Northwest’s fourth place slot and 19 games behind first place team, the Thunder, three back of third place franchise, the 33-22 Minnesota Timberwolves. That revenge is winning games against the aforementioned top nine teams, and so far the Nuggets have beaten two of them, the Heat and the Clippers. Surely taking down the remaining seven or losing to even four of them by only a few points will be sweet revenge for the Denver franchise; it will certainly demonstrate that the Nuggets are a better than marginal team. Maybe with wins among the other games to be played, the Nuggets will achieve a .500 or higher season finish, thus landing inside a winner’s bracket although quite distant from playoff candidacy, showing once again that the team’s rookie head coach, Brian Shaw, is the right HC for leading the Nuggets during the 2014/15 NBA season. We shouldn’t forget that prior to numerous player-injuries, the Nuggets achieved seven- and five-game winning streaks (November-Dec., and January). Next up for the Nuggets re. “the nine-to-conquer,” will occur this Sunday @ Pepsi Center-Denver, vs. the Wizards. END/ml.