BASEBALL: The Majors & Division Supremacy; More About Amazing Batter, Tony Gwynn; Colorado Rockies, Wrong Side Of A No-Hitter

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 . . . // . . BASEBALL: The Majors & Division Supremacy, Where Is It?// More About Amazing Batter, Tony Gwynn // Colorado Rockies, Wrong Side of A No-Hitter. . . // . . MLB--- A READER of this column wants to know which of the six MLB divisions is best. Well, there are many ways for a hunter to track prey, and it’s surely like that when it comes to deciding which division inside either of pro- baseball’s two leagues is better than the other five. For instance, there’s looking at the differential regarding games won by the first and last teams inside each of the six divisions, the gold star going to compactness. Today, the National League East’s first place team, the Washington Nationals, has 37 won games, while the NL East’s fifth and last place team, the N.Y. Mets, has 33 won games. That’s a difference of only four wins. As of today, the remaining five divisions have differentials of six or more wins, while four of the divisions have top to bottom differences greater than 10. From this, no outright foolishness exists in naming the NL East the top division within both leagues, although the NL East’s number one franchise, the Nationals, has the least number of won games among all six division leading teams, the 37 cited above. So, which division could boast that it has had the most wins since the start of the current season? On Monday, that division was the AL West, which had a total of 180 won games. Lowest among the remaining five divisions was the National League Central, with 153 wins. Yet, on the same day, neither the AL Central nor the AL West owned the first and second place teams with the most wins. That record belonged to the NL West, its S.F. Giants having 43 won games, the L.A. Dodgers, 37. Today, the Giants own 45 wins, the Dodgers 40. Were Monday the first day of this year’s post-season, the two teams would have been vying for a division championship title. Lowest in this category on Monday was the NL East, its Atlanta Braves having 36 won games, the Miami Marlins, 35. Or, an indicator for measuring value among the six MLB divisions could be the total number of wins accumulated by the fourth and fifth position teams of each division, e.g., on Monday the AL West’s fourth and fifth place teams, the Texas Rangers and the Houston Astros, together had a total on Monday of 66 wins, worst in this category the AL East’s Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays with their combined 58 wins. And, is there a division with a fifth place team that has experienced the same number of losses that a division first place club has had of won games? Right now, the AL East’s Tampa Bay Rays have 45 losses, while the AL West’s Giants lead both MLB leagues with its 43 wins. Bottom line here, when it comes to ways to figure out which division is superior, it gets like those Russian dolls, where you uncover one stat only to learn there’s another underneath. Of course, the total number of fans and analysts concerned with which MLB division is best approximately half way during an MLB season probably couldn’t fill a standard office building’s elevator, but if a baseball season is to be about how many games are won over losses, then total number of wins accumulated by a division seems the more appropriate judgment factor, anyway the easiest and to our eyes the more satisfying . . . // . . MORE ABOUT BATTER, TONY GWYNN---WHAT Gwynn did isn’t for everybody but it worked for him, e.g., batting practice nearly every day, and since the best hitter will be using wrists, arms, torso, hips and legs in balance + eyes tracking like a modern drone with HD-TV monitors, all this for each swing of the bat, Gwynn kept his body, mind and spirit strong and flexible. In this regard, the 5’10 200-pound Gwynn’s only flaw was a habit of chewing tobacco, which led to the cancer that led to his death at 54. . . Gwynn finished his career with a .348 batting average, Ty Cobb .385. Gwynn ended his career with 3,141 hits. Yes, Gwynn didn’t just hit, e.g., in 1987 he became the first National League batter to while hitting as high as .370 also stole 56 bases. Gwynn had a hit inside of every eight at-bats that year, and the .370 was the highest NL season batting average since the St. Louis Cardinals Stan Musial achieved .376 in 1948. In 1987, Gwynn hit in over 80 percent of the 155 games during which he’d played. Also that year, Gwynn struck out only 35 times during 589 at-bats. When totaling and averaging in the number of times that Gwynn got on base along with the number of times that he caused his team to have an out at the plate, his number is high and off the charts, 1,086, well above the .800 that is usually that of an All Star game selectee. . . COLORADO ROCKIES---IT’s been noted again and again: the best among batting orders rarely produces enough runs over, say, ten games in order to offset the number of runs given away to opposing teams by starting pitcher rotation + bull pen combos that rarely settle beneath a 4.8 ERA, and the numbers and pain gets worse when an order is up against a starting pitcher like L.A. Dodgers LH Clayton Kershaw, who last night pitched a no-hitter against the Colorado Rockies, final score Dodgers 8, Rockies the zip, zero, nada! Kershaw achieved the sweet dream, 15 strikeouts, just two beneath the record for most strikeouts during a no-hitter, the 17 achieved by Nolan Ryan in 1973. The Rockies experienced the nightmare, with .356 batting average holder Troy Tulowitzki 3-0 for the night, .326 hitter Corey Dickerson, 4-0, and .336 Josh Rutledge, 3-0. But the award for best horror picture went to Rockies LH Jorge De La Rosa’s gift of seven runs to the Dodgers, his ERA now above 4.6. It’s in 3-D now, clearly visible from any vantage point: the Rockies won’t be in position for a post-season slot as the season progresses unless the team’s starters + bull pen can upgrade skills and bring consistency to a greater number of strikeouts, therefore to lower ERA’s, and it has to begin to as close to NOW as is possible. A line-up that includes five batters with averages above .287, three of which are above .325, i.e., that of the Rockies batting order, such cannot be faulted from a single no-hitter re. the Rockies third place NL West position and a drop to 34 wins against 38 losses, percentage .472, and the worst games behind record for a NL third place team, nine back of NL West first place franchise, the 45-29 S.F. Giants. END/ml