Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
August 31, 2006
The Streakers

The Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Cincinnati Reds 7-3 behind another fine performance by Greg Maddux. The veteran righty was certainly one of the best deals at the trade deadline, considering the Dodgers gave up spare parts for him. The win extended the Dodgers win streak to five and the Reds losing streak to 6.

It's been tough to get a handle on these two teams over the course of the season because they are so streaky. If you look at streaks of four games or more, Cincinnati has five win streaks of that length, and five losing streaks. In their streaks, the Reds are 26-27, which pretty much matches their record for the year, .500. The Dodgers also experienced five losing streak, also totalling 27 games. But the Dodgers went through more and longer winning streaks, six streak totalling 38 wins. The Dodgers are 11 games over .500 in the streaks, nine games over .500 overall.

So teams get hot and teams get cold, but overall these things even out. The Reds are a .500 team, and their streaks reflect that. The Dodgers are a better than.500 team, and their streaks reflect that. Instead of winning every other game, the Reds are going on long tears that alternately elate and depress their fans. Instead of winning 9 out of 17 in a regular fashion, the Dodgers have been the worst and the best team in the NL West. Every lurch away from the mean this year was answered by an equally strong tug back.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:37 AM | Team Evaluation | TrackBack (0)
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