Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Losing with a Walk Differential of >= 9

The Chicago Cubs lost 5-4 in extra innings to the Houston Astros last night. I was reading a Cubs blog this morning and came across an interesting question: "What about having a walk differential of +9 and losing a game? How often does that occur?"

The inspiration for that query, of course, was the fact the Cubs had ten walks in the game and the Astros had one (given up to the batter who eventually scored the winning run). Given my compulsion to look up answers to strange questions like that, I tracked down what I think is the most recent such game.

On April 26, 2006, the New York Yankees were defeated by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 10 innings, amassing six hits and fourteen walks while only giving up seven hits and five walks of their own. I find it interesting that with twenty baserunners throughout the game and only two double plays recorded by Tampa Bay, the Yankees only managed to plate two runners (on a home run, no less). They left sixteen baserunners stranded.

Also notable: since 1957, it has only happened fifty-four times that a team has had at least twenty baserunners and two or fewer runs scored in the same game. It was only the fourth time since 2000 it happened.

NOTE: That's what I found looking through the B-R PI's Team Batting and Team Pitching Game Finders with walks set to different numbers. If you find a more recent example, let me know!

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