In the NL, black and blues

DENVER - What have they done with the Senior Circuit?

The National League stinks. It's been this way for some time, but never more evident than in the first three games of the 2007 World Series.

"It's been obvious for a while," said former Cy Young winner Rick Sutcliffe, who pitched in the NL and the AL. "And it's never more obvious than it is here in the World Series. I'm not going to bury anybody, but you look at these two teams and go position by position, it's obvious who should win."

Kevin Paul Dupont, the Globe's hockey guru, was the first to remind us that the 2007 World Series feels like the 1970 Stanley Cup finals when the Bruins did all their hard work in the early rounds, then finished with four easy games against the expansion St. Louis Blues.

These Rockies look a lot like those Blues. But that's not supposed to happen when you're the champions of a league that's been around since 1876.

OK, the St. Louis Cardinals won the 2006 World Series. They beat the Tigers in five games. But it was a fluke, people. The Tigers lost all their momentum during a long delay after the American League Championship Series, then underperformed in the Fall Classic. Detroit pitchers forgot how to catch and throw. And a mediocre Cardinal team that went 83-78 during the regular season somehow got hot and made off with the World Series trophy.

But none of that changes the fact that the NL is bad. When it's over this year the AL will have won three of the last four World Series and seven of the last 10. The AL hasn't lost an All-Star Game since 1996.

More than the World Series and the All-Star Game, interleague play has exposed the NL. Fans in AL cities see NL teams on a regular basis now and there simply wasn't a good team in the NL this year. No NL team won more than 90 games in 2007. This was a first for a 162-game season.

The Americans won interleague play, 137-115. The Sox went 12-6 vs. the NL this year. Is there any surprise they crushed the Rockies in the first three games of the World Series?

You probably remember the same dynamic in 2004, when the Red Sox outscored the Cardinals, 24-12, in four games. The first three games this year totaled 25-7. In the immortal words of the late, great Ned Martin . . . "Mercy."

"I think there are five or six teams in the American League that are better than any team in the National League," said former Red Sox manager Kevin Kennedy. "I thought the Dodgers had the best team in the National League - the team best suited for the playoffs - but they imploded."

Did you watch any of the NLCS? It was hard to keep your eyes open. The Diamondbacks featured one of the worst postseason lineups of all time. Arizona was outscored by 20 runs during the regular season. Think about that. One of the tenets of sport is that to be considered good you have to score more than the other guys. And yet one of the teams playing in the NLCS was outscored during the 162-game season. Thank God the D-Backs didn't beat Colorado or the Sox might have won the 2007 World Series in three.

It's become clear in this late October that the Red Sox benefit from playing in the AL. When you see the Yankees 18 or 19 times per season, you become accustomed to playoff atmosphere. The Sox are battle tested and it looks like NL pitchers can't get through the Boston lineup.

The Red Sox did not win more than five straight games during the regular season. That's probably because they play in the AL. Starting with Game 5 of the ALCS in Cleveland, the Sox have ripped off six straight wins by an aggregate score of 55-12. They took a six-game winning streak into last night's potential clinch game.

Against the 1970 St. Louis Blues.

Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com.