2010 may well be a banner year for the National League.

There’s no doubt that the American League, the so-called Junior Circuit, has been the stronger of the two in recent years.  It’s been fairly even in terms of World Series winners over the last ten years, with the AL shading it 6-4, but if we stretch that out to 1991 then the National League falls back to 6-12 (no World Series was played in 1994). 

Additionally, the AL has been seen as the stronger competition overall, not least in the shape of a team like the Toronto Blue Jays of 2006-07 who were probably good enough to win a National League division in both years, but didn’t even make the postseason due to the AL competition they were up against.

And then there was the All-Star Game.  Prior to this year’s Mid-Summer Classic, the National League hadn’t won the annual get-together since 1996.  A single exhibition game each year doesn’t really tell you anything about the respective strengths of the two leagues, but that didn’t make the run any less annoying to National League fans.

So when the Atlanta Braves’ Brian McCann doubled home three runs for the National League All-Star team on 13 July and led his team to a 3-1 victory, one part of the AL’s dominance was pushed to one side. 

In terms of overall strength, the American League still looks to have the edge.  ESPN’s MLB Power Rankings has the Yankees, Rays and Twins as the top three teams in the Majors and that looks a fair call; however, and partly due to the quality of those three teams, the National League is undoubtedly on top when it comes to exciting postseason races.

A quick glance at the standings shows that the AL races, while not yet finalized mathematically, are close to being decided.  That’s emphasised by the Postseason Odds published on BaseballProspectus.com, a report “compiled by running a Monte Carlo simulation of the rest of the season one million times”. 

Prior to Sunday’s games, the Rays had a 99.6 per cent chance of making the postseason, the Yankees 98.9 per cent, the Rangers 98.8 per cent and the Twins 96.5 per cent.  In other words, it would be a real shock if the four teams currently occupying the four playoff places are not the teams holding those slots at the end of the regular season.

It’s a different story in the National League. 

The Cincinnati Reds stand a great chance of winning the National League Central.  Their Postseason odds are at 98.5 per cent and it would take a desperate collapse, combined with a  surge by St. Louis, for them to be denied from this point.  Yet even the Reds’ strong current position is something to be excited about. 

They’ve not made the postseason since winning the World Series in 1995, so they’ll be a ‘new’ postseason contender to add to the mix that we’ve seen in recent years.  The Reds are a great combination of veterans like Scott Rolen and Bronson Arroyo, and young stars like MVP candidate Joey Votto, the starting pitching talents of Johnny Cueto, Edinson Volquez, Mike Leake and Travis Wood, and the latest showstopper in Aroldis Chapman. 

The other two National League divisions, and the Wild Card, are where the true drama lies over the next few weeks.

The Atlanta Braves took first place in the NL East on 31 May, following a win over the Phillies, and had stretched their lead to seven games three weeks later.  However, two losses at the start of last week against the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates allowed the Phillies to edge ahead and the teams were level before yesterday’s games.  The Braves and Phillies play each other six more times the rest of the way: a three-game series in Philadelphia over 20-22 September and a three-game series in Atlanta to end the season over 1-3 October. 

The Braves and Phillies had a two-game lead in the NL Wild Card over the second-placed team in the NL West.  That was the San Francisco Giants after they lost to the San Diego Padres on Saturday, although they only trailed the Friars by a single game before the two teams met for the fourth and final game of a series at Petco Park yesterday.

The Padres have been the Cinderella team of the 2010 season.  Sceptics had been waiting for them to fall from their lofty position as division leaders ever since they first took first place.  They stayed there for 141 calendar days and had just about proved the doubters wrong before going into a tailspin and losing ten games in a row over 26 August-5 September, shrinking their division lead from 6.5 games to just one. 

Adding to the story is that the Giants are no longer the only team chasing them down.  The Colorado Rockies are invoking the spirit of their incredible 2007 stretch run to get back into the 2010 race, winning nine straight before Sunday’s game against the Diamondbacks.  The Padres and Rockies start a three-game series at Coors Field today (the Rockies are leading the season series 11-4 so far) and the Padres are also scheduled to face the Giants in a three-game series to end the season.

So while the postseason spots in the AL are likely to be decided before or at the start of the final week, the NL East, West and Wild Cards could all come down to the final weekend as the key protagonists meet (the Rockies close the season out with a four-game series in St. Louis).

One of the (many) criticisms about the All-Star Game determining home-field advantage for the World Series is that no one knows who will benefit from it at the time, therefore the idea that it is an incentive for the players is overstated.  While we know that it will be the National League representative who benefits for the first time in a while, we still don’t know which player(s) directly helped their own cause, not least because, two months on from the game at Angel Stadium, we don’t even know which NL teams will be playing beyond the regular season.

All of which makes the Senior Circuit the centre of attention. After years of Junior Circuit superiority, the older league could be making a comeback.