Thursday, May 20, 2004
I Hate The Twinkies...Reason 1
Over the last 3 years, the Twinkies are by far the luckiest team I've ever seen. Let's look at it from pythagorean winning percentage:
+22 over 3 1/4 years - that's pretty amazing. Twenty-one more wins than their Runs Scored vs. Runs Allowed would suggest.
Here's the thing that upsets me even more - all the comebacks the Twins have generated over that same period. Since 2001, the Twins have had no fewer than 22 (!) comebacks where they were down in the ninth inning and came back to win. This doesn't even count the Twinkies 8th-inning comebacks (like opening day this year, where they scored 4 in the 8th to tie). Only 7 of these 22 games were 1-run jobs. Most were multi-run innings where they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat (number in parentheses are the number of runs the Twinks needed to go ahead):
That's an extraordinary number of comebacks - especially when you consider that before this year, the White Sox hadn't come back from a 4-run deficit in the 9th for something like 15 years. 22 games the Twinks had lost they came back to win. Take only those games out of their win column and the Twinks finish second to the Sox in 2003.
I need to figure out how many games like this the White Sox have won in the same period....my guess is fewer than 10...and probably 7 of the 10 were of the 1 run variety.
Comments-[ comments.]
Over the last 3 years, the Twinkies are by far the luckiest team I've ever seen. Let's look at it from pythagorean winning percentage:
| Year | Actual W-L | Pythag. W-L | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 85-77 | 81-81 | +4 |
| 2002 | 94-67 | 86-75 | +8 |
| 2003 | 90-72 | 85-77 | +5 |
| 2004 | 24-15 | 20-19 | +4 |
| Total | 293-231 | 272-252 | +21 |
+22 over 3 1/4 years - that's pretty amazing. Twenty-one more wins than their Runs Scored vs. Runs Allowed would suggest.
Here's the thing that upsets me even more - all the comebacks the Twins have generated over that same period. Since 2001, the Twins have had no fewer than 22 (!) comebacks where they were down in the ninth inning and came back to win. This doesn't even count the Twinkies 8th-inning comebacks (like opening day this year, where they scored 4 in the 8th to tie). Only 7 of these 22 games were 1-run jobs. Most were multi-run innings where they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat (number in parentheses are the number of runs the Twinks needed to go ahead):
| Year | Date | 9th Inning Runs | Tied/Won in 9th |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 5-Apr | 1 | Tied |
| 2001 | 17-May | 2 | Won |
| 2001 | 25-Apr | 1 | Tied |
| 2001 | 11-May | 1 | Tied |
| 2001 | 26-May | 2 | Tied |
| 2001 | 19-Jun | 2 | Won |
| 2001 | 26-Jun | 4 | Won |
| 2001 | 3-Aug | 2 | Won |
| 2001 | 4-Oct | 2 | Won |
| 2002 | 25-Apr | 5 (2) | Won |
| 2002 | 2-May | 2 | Tied |
| 2002 | 4-Aug | 1 | Tied |
| 2002 | 25-Sep | 1 | Tied |
| 2003 | 1-May | 1 | Tied |
| 2003 | 13-May | 1 | Tied |
| 2003 | 29-Jun | 2 | Tied |
| 2003 | 31-Jul | 2 | Tied |
| 2003 | 3-Sep | 2 | Won |
| 2004 | 6-Apr | 2 | Tied |
| 2004 | 23-Apr | 3 (2) | Won |
| 2004 | 27-Apr | 4 (2) | Tied |
| 2004 | 19-May | 4 | Won |
That's an extraordinary number of comebacks - especially when you consider that before this year, the White Sox hadn't come back from a 4-run deficit in the 9th for something like 15 years. 22 games the Twinks had lost they came back to win. Take only those games out of their win column and the Twinks finish second to the Sox in 2003.
I need to figure out how many games like this the White Sox have won in the same period....my guess is fewer than 10...and probably 7 of the 10 were of the 1 run variety.
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