The Odd Stat of the Week

Issue: Can we get some baseball here?

Short Answer: Yes.

Reasoning: The Major League Baseball season is well under way, and ESPN already knows who is going to win the World Series.  It's crazy, but if you watch "The Worldwide Leader in Sports" (ha), you would begin to wonder why they even play the games.  ESPN has more analysts that tell me what is going to happen, before it actually happens, than my local fortune teller (and she tells me some zany stuff).  And, the experts in Bristol have already come up with doomsday prophecies for a few of the slow-starting teams.  The fact is this - the baseball season is 162 games long.  Any talk about teams in trouble of not making the post season is about as ludicrous as a preseason NCAA football or basketball poll.  Nothing can be ascertained by what has transpired to this point, period.  Baseball is a game of streaks (both individually and collectively) and the Red Sox are just as likely to win 12 games in a row starting today, as they are at any point during the season.  Let's not overanalyze a season that is not even 10% complete yet.  Please.

However, when a team loses historically, that is something we can talk about.  Even though, in the grand scheme of things, losing historically doesn't hinder a team's postseason chances (unless of course that historical losing consists of a losing streak of epic proportions - here, it does not).  The Tampa Bay Rays (I still have difficulty not calling them the "Devil Rays") have been a big factor in Major League Baseball over the last few years.  They have young players like Evan Longoria, Carlos Pena, B.J. Upton, David Price, and Dan Johnson (okay, he isn't young, but he was my spring training roommate when I was with the Oakland A's, and, I felt like name dropping - deal with it).  The (Devil) Rays made it to the World Series in 2008 before losing to the Philedelphia Phillies, and, in 2010 made the playoffs again, but lost to the Texas Rangers in the ALDS.  So, one would figure, with much of their roster returning, that the Rays would be poised to make another postseason run.  If the guys at ESPN were watching their first week of baseball, they are probably talking about moving the team to a new city, sending all the players down to AAA, or contracting the team altogether.

You see, the Tampa Bay Rays started off this season like no other team in history.  Take a look at their first 7 games:

1. vs. Baltimore, Loss, 4-1 (Tampa Bay never led in the game);
2. vs. Baltimore, Loss, 3-1 (Tampa Bay never led in the game);
3. vs. Baltimore, Loss, 5-1 (Tampa Bay never led in the game);
4. vs. L.A. Angels, Loss, 5-3 (Tampa Bay never led in the game);
5. vs. L.A. Angels, Loss, 5-1 (Tampa Bay never led in the game);
6. @ Chicago, Loss, 5-1 (Tampa Bay never led in the game)
7. @ Chicago, Win, 9-7 (Tampa Bay never led in the game, until, my boy Dan Johnson hit a 3-run homer to cap a 5-run 9th inning).

There you have your Odd Stat of the Week - Tampa Bay finally won its first game of the season after trailing for 62 straight innings!  And, to think, they were down 7-4 heading into the 9th, and were about to go 0-7.  You can't make this stuff up folks.  In the first 6 games the Rays scored a total of 8 runs; in their first win, they scored 9*.  In their first 6 games the Rays hit .145 as a team; in their first win, they hit .256 as a team.  In their first 6 games the Rays held the lead for exactly 0 innings; in their first win they held the lead for exactly 1 inning - but, that one inning was enough.  Just a few more reasons why baseball is the greatest game on earth.

P.S. The Rays dropped the next 2 games to the White Sox to fall to 1-8.  In those two games they held the lead for only 1 inning.  So, in the Rays' first 9 games, they held the lead for 2 out of 81 innings, but actually won one of those games.  Wow.

*Stats taken from here.