The Colorado Rockies have never been the easiest team to try and evaluate. The high altitude that makes for an offense-heavy home environment always inflates batting numbers and depresses pitching ones. That’s why, as this Rockies team stays in a packed NL West race, a couple numbers in particular jump out—Colorado is 21-14 on the […]
The Colorado Rockies are the first to throw their hat in the ring for the honor of big surprise team for 2013. The Rockies are 13-4 coming into Sunday’s games and lead the National League West by 2 ½ games. TheSportsNotebook’s National League MLB coverage will ask the question of how much of this is real and what’s a reasonable timetable to make Colorado wait before granting them acceptance as a contender.
Last season it was the Baltimore Orioles and Oakland A’s who came from off the grid, so to speak and shocked the baseball world with a push into the playoffs and each reached the decisive game of the Division Series round before falling. Are there any such candidates for a similar stunning season in 2013?
Well, if we could say with certainty, they wouldn’t be shockers. But we can at least assess the teams at the bottom of the ladder when it comes to the early betting odds in Las Vegas. TheSportsNotebook’s preseason MLB coverage will therefore focus on the four teams with the longest World Series odds. That’s Miami and Colorado in the National League, along with Minnesota and league-jumping Houston in the American League