Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
October 17, 2005
Low Offense Series

What a poor offensive series by both teams. The Angels were amazingly bad, hitting just .175, drawing four walks in five games and slugging .266. A player would not last a week in the majors with those numbers. They did not set a record for post-season futility, however. The 1998 Texas Rangers hit just .141 in their ALDS series. The 1966 Dodgers managed a .142 batting average in the 1966 World Series. The record for LCS futility goes to the first ALCS loser, the 1969 Twins. They managed a mere .155 batting average against a great Orioles staff. (The 1969 Orioles would hit .146 against the Mets in the World Series, the third lowest batting average for any single post-season series.)

Chicago's .248 batting average seems low until you put it in historical perspective. From 1903 to 2004, there were 213 post season series. Eighty three saw winning teams with lower batting averages than Chicago's .248. The 1996 Atlanta Braves won the NLDS with a .180 BA, the lowest for a series winner. The lowest ALCS winner was the 1974 Oakland A's with a .183 BA. The World Series record belongs to the famous 1918 Red Sox, .186.

The average score of a game in this series was 4.6-2.2. Again, while 6.8 runs per game seems low, historically there are 70 series with a lower runs per game. In fact, the St. Louis-Houston series is currently at 6.5 runs per game. Of course, they don't have a DH.

Correction: Fixed a typo refering to the 1966 Dodgers in the 1966 World Series, not the 1996 Dodgers.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:49 AM | League Championship Series | TrackBack (0)
Comments

I've always believed that the playoffs were all about pitching and your numbers seem to support that claim (which certainly didn't originate from me). The last few season in the AL with the slugfest teams playing, we've lost sight of that. But when you think back to the 1990s, the Yankee teams and their opponents all relied on great pitching staffs. I'm not at all surprised to hear that the playoffs are traditionally low-scoring affairs.

Posted by: Benjamin Kabak at October 17, 2005 09:44 AM

A big difference between the regular season and the playoffs is how a starting rotation affects a team's performance. In the regular season, your top 2 pitchers start 40% (2 out of 5) of the games; in the post-season, your top 2 start at least 57% (4 out of 7) of the games. So, the .550 team with two legitimate "aces" can easily do better in the post-season than the .600 team with no top starters. And, since the weather is comparably cool and there are few #4 & #5 starters pitching playoff games, playoff games tend to be low-scoring affairs (vs. comparable regular season games).

Posted by: Jason at October 17, 2005 12:07 PM

I'm not sure how many of the 1996 Dodgers were even alive for the 1966 World Series. No wonder they weren't hitting much.

Posted by: Adam Villani at October 17, 2005 12:13 PM

"Of course, they don't have a DH."

Neither did the Angels

Posted by: Rallymonkey at October 18, 2005 11:45 AM

The Rallymonkey is harsh, but truthful.

Posted by: David Pinto at October 18, 2005 11:52 AM
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