October 22, 2014

BP Unfiltered

There Will Be A Game Two

by Russell A. Carleton

OMFSM! The Giants not only won the pennant, but they completely dominated the Royals last night. Hard to believe, but in a game where both teams had such amazing momentum coming in (8-0 vs. pennant winning walk-off!) one of them actually lost the game. And call me a conspiracy theorist, but I personally think it might have had something to do with Madison Bumgarner, rather than some sort of government conspiracy.

But join with me now in some overblown hysteria. The Royals are doomed! Big Mo is now with the Giants and there is nothing that anyone can do to stop them! Start engraving the trophy. #EvenYear

*sigh*

Warning! Gory Mathematical Details Ahead!

I looked at all post-season series from 1950-2013. I found all series in which a team won Game One of that series by five runs or more.

What percentage of the remaining games in the series (2 though 7) did those teams win? 53 percent.

What percentage of the remaining games did teams who won Game 1—but by four or fewer runs—win? 51 percent.

I played around with the boundaries on that (defining a blowout as a margin of seven runs or more, going back into all of postseason history) and got basically the same result every time.

The fact that Game One ended in a blowout tells us a tiny bit about what's to come (and for the super-initiated, that chi-square isn't actually significant). Much more important in determining the outcome of the Series is the fact that Giants won last night. Depending on your allegiance, that's what you should be happy/sad about. The fact that it was a dud of a game means very little.

So as always, let's keep things in perspective. No one is doomed. The Royals lost a game. The Giants won a game. They play again tonight.

Russell A. Carleton is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @pizzacutter4
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