Sep 16 2009
Road Records
Just noting here the current road record of the top teams in each division:
- Yankees: 42-30
- Tigers: 32-40
- Angels: 42-32
- Phillies: 43-28
- Cardinals: 41-31
- Dodgers: 42-30
Notice any consistencies? Any outliers? I would say that Detroit’s basically done for in the first round, but that’s not a particularly stunning revelation, since they would be at least six games out of first in any other division. Texas, which likely won’t catch Boston for the AL Wild Card, leads Detroit by two games in the standings right now. Minus the Tigers’ severe deviation, however, I think that’s a pretty tight grouping.
Second, I wonder if there’s some way to get the stats on late inning runs, say 7th, 8th, and 9th. I have to believe that the Yankees would be leading in that metric by a lot. It would seem to suggest a team that’s really come together as a team.
Anyway.
Topspun,
I’ll bite. Yes, the Tigers clearly stand out in the wins and losses comparison, though if I’m not mistaken, we’ve had more than a few wild card World Series Champions and pennant winners over the past decade. I don’t remember if any of them had as bad a record as the Tigers do, but I’m willing to bet a few did.
Look, I’m not making any predictions about the Tigers’ chances. Alls I’m sayin’ is…Justin Verlander can pitch, and the Yankees and Phillies and Red Sox and Angels and Dodgers all have some major questions at this moment. The Cardinals have the best starting pitching tandem it seems to me, plus the best position player, but to my mind any one of these teams, including the Tigers even, could get hot and reach the Series.
Feels like in recent seasons much depends on how each team is playing in the final two weeks of the season (though I’m not sure where stats on this might be found that could back that feeling up.) I’m interested to see who finishes the season with a winning record in the final ten games and whose top pitchers are particularly sharp in their final couple of starts…oh, and i’m interested to see if it matters whether the champs’ closer has blown ten games already this season.
Chuck in Austin
Chuck: I like the last ten days of the season as a measure, but the measure is always a bit arbitrary, no? That’s something I dig about baseball – the proliferation of statistics that can serve as a basis for arguments. I mean, really, the road record? Runs scored in the last three innings of a game? But it teaches you how to make a case, right?
Phillies are hot as hell, and I gotta believe that they’ll be in the NLCS at least, even if their home record this year is an embarrassment. Barring a meltdown, I don’t see how the Yankees start dropping games now. They’ve put on a clinic since mid-July, and their batting order is a mile deep. Even the third string catchers hit walk-offs. It’s spooky what’s gone on at the new Yankee Stadium this year in the bottom half of the last inning.
And I do hope you hit me back on that Pynchon reading.