The Mavericks beat the Clippers 117-94 last night to improve to 54-27 and now are in position to claim the two-seed in the West with a home win tomorrow night against San Antonio. The Nuggets routed the Grizzlies 123-101 to go to 53-28 on the year. The Jazz need the Nuggets to lose tonight to have any hope of winning the Northwest Division title. Denver is at Phoenix with tip-off a little more than an hour from now on TNT. I think the Suns will take that one at home since they have a lot to play for and Steve Nash has been playing lights out lately and should be given some consideration for MVP after the way he has carried that team this season (though the consensus is LeBron James will repeat in that category, I don't think it's as clear-cut as people make it seem).
In baseball, the New York Mets (2-4, trailing at Colorado 2-0 in the third) are still a mess, losing two of three over the weekend at home to the lightly regarded Washington Nationals (3-4). I was watching part of Saturday afternoon's game at Citi Field and it came right down to the end. The Nats held a one-run lead in the bottom of the ninth with two outs, but the Mets had the bases loaded. Rod Barajas hit a line drive to left that as soon as it was hit I thought would go for a base hit, two runs and a Mets win. However, left fielder Willie Harris made a nice diving catch to give the Nationals the win. The next day Mets closer Francisco "K-Rod" Rodriguez hit Harris with a pitch late in the game. The two exchanged heated words as Harris made his way to first base and both teams benches cleared although no punches were thrown. K-Rod probably won't say it was intentional, but Harris obviously thought it was and I tend to agree more with the latter. I haven't been a fan of K-Rod's antics dating back to his time with the Angels. Every time he saves a game he acts like he's just won the World Series. I'm fine with pitching with emotion and all that as well as celebrating but at the same time I'd say save the most extravagant of celebrations for when you actually do win big games.
The season is about a week old, so it's tough to tell who the real winners and losers are going to be. The two teams I've been surprised the most by so far have been the Blue Jays and Athletics who are both 6-2 following Toronto's 4-2 win over the White Sox (3-5) tonight. The A's play at Seattle a little later. It'll be interesting to see how long the Jays can stay competitive in the ultra competitive AL East which I think has three of the best five teams in baseball -- the the Rays, Yankees and Red Sox. They've been playing well so far though. As have the Athletics who have gotten a lot from their young pitching so far and gotten some offense as well. I picked them to finish last in the AL West because I didn't think they had enough experience pitching or enough offensive punch. They're one of my favorite teams, though, so I hope I'm wrong. On the other end of the spectrum the Angels and Mariners, both 2-6, don't look as good as I thought they would. But again, it's early, and Mariners pitcher Cliff Lee is still on the disabled list. I think things will still more or less go as I've predicted even if the standings don't look as expected after one week of play. As for my Giants they improved to 6-1 with a 9-3 win over the Pirates last night. Game 2 of that series starts at 8:15 p.m. MT.
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