The Yankees spent the last three weeks of the regular season trying to give
the AL East to anyone who would take it from them. Fortunately for them,
they were not being pursued by the A’s or Indians, but by a pair of teams
who were just as generous, the Red Sox and Blue Jays. New York was able to
slip into the postseason with 87 wins, their lowest total since the
strike-shortened 1994 season.
Even though they’re still playing baseball,
the Yankee collapse has to be
of some concern. They lost their last seven games and 15 of their last 18,
getting blown out in a number of them. Here are the worst 18-game September
stretches I could find for playoff teams since 1901 (the birth of
baseball’s middle ages):
Year Team W L RS RA RS-RA And then...2000 NY-A 3 15 59 148 -89 1944 STL-N 5 13 53 86 -33 4-2 1968 STL-N 5 13 53 76 -23 3-4 1971 SF-N 5 13 52 71 -19 1-3 1980 KC-A 5 13 70 96 -26 5-4
The numbers on the right are the team’s postseason record. Of the teams
above, only the 1944 Cardinals won the World Series. So prior this year’s
Yankees, no playoff team since 1901 had lost 15 of 18 games in September.
Here are the worst stretches among playoff teams at any point during the year:
Year Team W L RS RA RS-RA1982 ATL-N 2 16 64 108 -44 1996 SD-N 2 16 54 113 -59 1930 STL-N 3 15 87 116 -29 1995 NY-A 3 15 67 114 -47 2000 NY-A 3 15 59 148 -89
But what about the worst 18-game run differentials?
Year Team W L RS RA RS-RA2000 NY-A 3 15 59 148 -89 1996 SD-N 2 16 54 113 -59 1996 BAL-A 5 13 98 147 -49 1986 BOS-A 5 13 53 101 -48 1995 NY-A 3 15 67 114 -47 1982 MIL-A 5 13 62 109 -47
That’s quite a gap between this year’s Yankees and all of the rest of the
teams on the list.
And the playoff teams that allowed the most runs over a 18-game period:
Year Team W L RS RA RS-RA1996 BAL-A 6 12 107 148 -41 2000 NY-A 3 15 59 148 -89 1930 PHI-A 10 8 123 144 -21 1994 TEX-A 8 10 111 135 -24 1995 COL-N 6 12 112 132 -20
I wonder what drastic changes would have been made to this year’s squad if
they had started, rather than finished, the season 3-15, especially if
they’d done it while giving up an average of five more runs a game than
they scored.
How meaningful is all this information? The Yankees played poorly down the
stretch, but they were never really challenged for the division title and
they do have all that magical postseason experience? Does a bad stretch
drive bode ill for October?
Since the introduction of the wild card in 1995, there have been 20
Division Series. Here are the records of the teams that won and lost these
series over the final ten games of their regular season:
Total AL NL
W L W L W L
Winners: 111 89 55 45 56 44
Losers: 122 78 64 36 58 42
In the series in which the two teams did not have the same record over the
final ten games, the colder team coming in won 7 of 10 series in the AL and
5 of 8 in the NL.
Here are the same statistics on the last 30 League Championship Series
(back to 1984):
Total AL NL
W L W L W L
Winners: 168 132 85 65 83 67
Losers: 177 123 77 73 100 50
In the series where the two teams did not have the same record over their
final ten games, the colder team won 8 of 11 series in the NL and split ten
series in the AL.
And the data on the last 15 World Series:
W L
Winners: 84 66
Losers: 84 66
The team that had been colder over the final ten regular-season games won
eight of 12 championships. Of course, as the playoffs drag on, a team’s
performance during those last ten days in September becomes less and less
important.
Here are the teams losing seven or more of their last 10 games, along with
their record in the playoffs:
--- Post-Season ---
Last 10 Games Series
W L W L W L
1998 CLE-A 3 7 5 5 1 1
1998 SD-N 3 7 7 7 2 1 Lost World Series
1997 FLA-N 3 7 11 5 3 0 Won World Series
1988 BOS-A 3 7 0 4 0 1
1987 MIN-A 3 7 8 4 2 0 Won World Series
1986 CAL-A 3 7 3 4 0 1
34 29 8 4
Of course, the Yankees didn’t only go 3-7, they went 3-15, but as far as I
can tell, the teams that stumbled at the finish as often as not were able
to turn it around once the playoffs started.
Tom Ruane’s work has appeared in The Baseball Research Journal,
The Big Bad Baseball Annual and NINE. He lives in Poughkeepsie, New
York, where he is a liability to his recreational softball team. He can be
reached at truane@bestweb.net.
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