Because I have to work so much on the weekends (welcome to the new economy), I tend to lose track of baseball for a couple days every week. I try to make a habit of spending some time with the standings every Monday morning to piece together what I’ve missed.

So, here I am with MLB.com open in front of me, reading about the final results of interleague play. It’s telling me something that most baseball fans have known for years. For all the talk of parity in baseball, it’s clear that the American League is head-and-shoulders better than the National League.

Numbers don’t tell the whole story (just go ask Danny Haren and his six wins), but they can paint a pretty good picture. The AL dominated the NL in interleague play this year. Again. Nine of the 14 American League teams had winning records against the National League, compared to five in the National. Using my barely adequate math skills (along with the assistance of my mildly annoyed 12-year-old daughter), I have deduced that the American League had 137 interleague wins this year, and the NL had 114. (It should be noted, just for the purpose of scratching my OCD itch, that the Cubs and White Sox had one of their games rained out. That game will likely be made up in September.)

Perhaps congratulations are in order to the NL, whose member teams raised their win total from 2008, when they went 102-149 against the AL. Unfortunately, they fell just short of their 2007 win total, when they won 115 games.

So in the Great MLB Swap Meet of 2009, the National Leaguers got their collective clocks cleaned. But this is not new. This marks the sixth consecutive year that the Senior Circuit has been beaten up by its younger (stronger, better looking, dates cooler girls) brother.

This is hardly surprising. I really don’t like the designated hitter, but there’s no denying the impact it has had on the game. The AL is just stronger offensively, almost by definition. Each AL team has another full time, professional hitter on its roster, while the NL roster has – at best – a pinch hit specialist. DH’s get a full 500-600 at bats in a season, while 150 pinch hit at bats in a season is a ton. So, it would stand to figure that on average, American League teams are better hitting clubs.

But, the DH has something to do with the AL being better pitching teams as well. There are no guaranteed “holes” in an AL lineup. You don’t get to face the opposing pitcher every ninth at bat. And yes, I hear some of you out there talking about Carlos Zambrano and Micah Owings, but for every one of those guys there are 15 Ryan Dempsters and Jake Peavys. AL pitchers have to be just a shade tougher mentally than their NL counterparts. Watch what happens in August after Peavy is traded to Anaheim (assuming he comes back healthy, and I think they’d trade for him even if he’s hurt).

If he makes his first start on August 1st, it would come against Minnesota in the Metrodome. The Twins are less than a
great hitting club (please, don’t get me started), and there will be the natural adrenaline of a top competitor wanting to make a good impression on a new team. He’ll do very well in that first start. Then they go to Chicago to face the White Sox. That’s where Peavy will start to realize that there’s a huge difference between pitching to Chad Billingsley’s .222 average and Jim Thome’s .241. He’ll figure it out, though, and it will make him a better pitcher. He’ll do fine in the playoffs. I can’t wait to watch him face off against Josh Beckett in Game One of the ALCS.

The AL also has the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. Now, I’m as sick of the media sucking up to these two teams as everyone else is, but again, there is no denying the effect these two teams have on their league. They raise the water line on the competitive balance each offseason. The Yankees spent $250 million dollars on three players in December and scared every other American League contender into working harder to improve their team.

If you want to beat these guys you have to put together solid, solid clubs. Just ask Tampa Bay, who went 13-5 against the NL this year, but are sitting in third place in their division. Tampa would be one of the three best teams in the National League right now, maybe the best.

I’m not saying that whichever AL team gets to the World Series (be it the Red Sox or the Angels) will win the World Series. In any given series between any two teams a lot can happen. I’m just saying, on the whole, the National League just doesn’t match up. I’m not sure that they ever will, because the differences are too fundamental. We can talk about parity all we want, but for the foreseeable future, as long as these leagues play with two different sets of rules, the National League is going to be Class AAAA baseball.