18 replies to this topic

[Eric Van]

It's happened twice already this year -- which matches the total of the previous seven seasons.

It's happened 31 times in the 45 seasons starting since 1967.

They've won the first 5 games of a road trip just 15 times in 45 years (red).

They've won 5 straight on a road trip as part of an overall streak of 8 or more just 9 times (bold).

They've won 5 straight on a road trip against competition that averaged .500 or better just 6 times (underlined) -- twice in the 36 pre-Theo years, 4 times in the 9 Theo seasons (assuming the Yankees don't seriously collapse the rest of the way).

This is only the second time the last two things have both been true, let alone all three, but the opponents that time (1982) averaged just .503.

So, if you were asking the question, when was the last time they won 8 straight including 5 on the road against competition this good, the answer would appear to be, not in my memory (or yours, either, probably).

In this expanded table, DoD is Degree of Difficulty, the chance an average club would have of winning all of the games of the streak, on the road, against opponents of that quality. Pyth is adjusted for opponent quality. And Score compares the streaks to one another and is based on 40% DoD, 40% Pyth, and 20% total Streak length.

Five Straight Road Trip Wins

Year	Games	Strk	Start	End	Victims	Their Win%	Ave	DoD	RS/G	RA/G	Marg	Pyth	Before and after	Score
2011	6	9	7-Jun	12-Jun	NYA (3), Tor (3)	.569, .483	.526	.0057	10.0	3.2	6.8	.903	3 H W, A L	2.8
2011	5	5	20-Apr	24-Apr	Oak (1), LAA (4)	.412, .478	.465	.0269	5.0	1.6	3.4	.877	A L, A L	0.4
2010	5	5	22-May	26-May	Phi (2), TB (3)	.599, .593	.595	.0059	6.4	1.4	5.0	.961	A L, H L	2.5
2005	6	7	20-Jun	26-Jun	Cle (3), Phi (3)	.574, .543	.559	.0037	8.5	4.0	4.5	.836	H W, H L	1.7
2003	5	5	8-Jul	12-Jul	Tor (3), Det (2)	.531, .265	.425	.0358	5.2	2.8	2.4	.699	A L, A L	-2.1
2003	5	5	1-Sep	6-Sep	Phi (1), ChA(2), NYA (2)	.531, .531, .623	.568	.0082	8.0	3.4	4.6	.865	H L, A L	1.3
2002	5	6	16-Apr	21-Apr	Tor (2), KC (3)	.481, .383	.422	.0406	9.6	3.0	6.6	.863	H W, A L	-0.3
2002	7	9	3-May	9-May	TB (4), Oak (3)	.342, .636	.468	.0046	6.1	3.4	2.7	.721	2 H W, A L	0.9
2002	5	5	20-Sep	24-Sep	Bal (4), ChA (1)	.414, .500	.431	.0375	5.8	2.0	3.8	.845	H L, A L	-0.5
2001	5	5	3-Oct	6-Oct	TB (1), Bal (4)	.383, .391	.389	.0563	6.4	2.6	3.8	.771	A L, EOS	-2.4
2000	5	6	11-May	15-May	Bal (4), Tor (1)	.457, .512	.466	.0128	8.6	1.4	7.2	.962	H W, A L	2.3
1999	5	5	5-Apr	10-Apr	KC (3), TB (2)	.398, .481	.426	.0207	4.8	1.6	3.2	.850	SOS, A L	0.4
1996	5	6	7-Jul	14-Jul	Bal (1), ASB, Det (4)	.543, .327	.370	.0635	9.0	4.2	4.8	.707	A L, H W	-3.2
1995	5	12	3-Aug	7-Aug	Det (1), Tor (4)	.417, .389	.395	.0537	7.4	2.8	4.6	.797	A L, 7 H W	-0.2
1995	6	6	19-Aug	24-Aug	Sea (2), Cal (3), Oak (1)	.545, .538, .465	.528	.0057	7.0	4.7	2.3	.703	A L, A L	-0.1
1994	5	7	27-Apr	1-May	Oak (2), Cal (3)	.447, .409	.424	.0405	5.0	1.4	3.6	.886	A L, 2 H W	0.2
1994	5	5	20-Jun	25-Jun	Tor (3), Mil (2)	.478, .461	.471	.0253	6.8	3.0	3.8	.802	A L, A L	-0.3
1990	7	10	24-Aug	30-Aug	Tor (3), Cle(4)	.531, .475	.499	.0038	5.4	1.7	3.7	.894	A L, 3 H W	3.1
1986	5	5	7-May	11-May	Sea (2), Oak (3)	.414, .469	.447	.0322	6.8	4.0	2.8	.683	H L, A L	-2.0
1982	5	8	23-Apr	26-Apr	Tor (3), ChA (2)	.481, .537	.503	.0178	5.2	3.4	1.8	.690	2 H W, 1 H W	-0.4
1981	5	5	6-May	11-May	KC (1), Tor (4)	.485, .349	.376	.0623	6.6	3.4	3.2	.673	A L, A L	-3.8
1980	6	6	10-Jun	15-Jun	Sea (2), Cal (4)	.364, .406	.392	.0307	6.8	3.2	3.7	.728	A L, H L	-1.2
1977	9	11	29-Jul	7-Aug	Cal (3), Sea (2), Oak (4)	.457, .395, .391	.414	.0037	4.0	1.7	2.3	.781	H W, H W	2.1
1977	5	5	3-Sep	6-Sep	Tex (2), Tor (3)	.580, .335	.433	.0330	7.0	1.4	5.6	.937	A L, A L	0.7
1976	6	7	15-Sep	20-Sep	Mil (2), Det (4)	.410, .460	.443	.0170	6.2	3.2	3.0	.732	A L, H W	-0.2
1975	6	6	14-Jun	20-Jun	KC (2), Det (3), Bal (1)	.562, .358, .566	.461	.0124	7.3	3.7	3.7	.755	A L, A L	0.1
1973	5	5	4-Jul	7-Jul	NYA (3), ChA (2)	.494, .475	.486	.0215	4.8	2.0	2.8	.827	A L, A L	0.1
1973	5	8	20-Aug	25-Aug	Tex (3), Cal (2)	.352, .488	.406	.0466	7.2	4.6	2.6	.611	3 H W, A L	-2.9
1969	5	8	6-May	11-May	Sea (2), Cal (3)	.395, .438	.421	.0418	7.4	2.8	4.6	.814	3 H W, A L	-0.4
1968	5	5	5-Aug	9-Aug	ChA (4), Det (1)	.414, .636	.458	.0266	3.8	1.6	2.2	.807	H L, A L	-0.4
1967	6	10	18-Jul	23-Jul	Bal (2), Cle (4)	.472, .463	.466	.0129	5.8	2.3	3.5	.826	4 H W, H L	1.8

Edited by Eric Van, 15 June 2011 - 08:14 AM.

[dcmissle]

It's been 34 years, but I'll never forget the 9-game west-coast sweep in 1977. Don Aase joined the rotation in July, and they took off like a rocket.

[bosockboy]

Moreover, out of their 64 games, they have 50 of those wins and losses from winning and losing streaks of 3 or more games. They are 34-16 in those games. Lose 3, win 5. Lose 3, win 8. Even in the midst of this great stretch, their losses were the 3 game sweep at the hands of the White Sox.

Pretty strange year, but I have a feeling the losing streaks are in the rear view mirror.

[syoo8]

What a cool post. Thank you Eric-- very entertaining to read this.

[John DiFool]

Either of two things have happened-either Theo was successful in making this team more effective on the road (i.e. Crawford), and/or this team is just really good, and they'll dominate anywhere (as has been shown for most all of the top seasonal winning teams all time).

Or it's luck of course.

Edited by John DiFool, 12 June 2011 - 11:48 AM.

[mikeot]

Either of two things have happened-either Theo was successful in making this team more effective on the road (i.e. Crawford), and/or this team is just really good, and they'll dominate anywhere (as has been shown for most all of the top seasonal winning teams all time).

Or it's luck of course.

I believe the evidence points to the former. Many thanks Eric, most illuminating

[tonyarmasjr]

Either of two things have happened-either Theo was successful in making this team more effective on the road (i.e. Crawford), and/or this team is just really good, and they'll dominate anywhere (as has been shown for most all of the top seasonal winning teams all time).

Or it's luck of course.

I happened to check out his splits earlier, wondering about this. Kind of interesting:
Home: .246/.281/.344/.625
Away: .246/.278/.444/.722

[Eric Van]

So,on Monday Tuesday, the Sox will be trying to go to 7-0 on a road trip -- for only the third time since 1967.

In 1977 they had outscored their opponents 28-12 in the first 6 games, and won 1-0, Luis Tiant outdueling Joe Coleman. That pushed their lead over the Yankees to 1.5 games.

In 2002, they had a 38-23 margin, and won 5-1 behind Lowe to run their record to 24-7 and maintain a 5 game lead over the Yankees, which proved to be the season high.

This time, they've outscored their (considerably better) opponents 60-19.

Edited by Eric Van, 12 June 2011 - 10:08 PM.

[BroodsSexton]

So,on Monday, the Sox will be trying to go to 7-0 on a road trip -- for only the third time since 1967.

In 1977 they had outscored their opponents 28-12 in the first 6 games, and won 1-0, Luis Tiant outdueling Joe Coleman. That pushed their lead over the Yankees to 1.5 games.

In 2002, they had a 38-23 margin, and won 5-1 behind Lowe to run their record to 24-7 and maintain a 5 game lead over the Yankees, which proved to be the season high.

This time, they've outscored their (considerably better) opponents 60-19.

How about (run differential) / (# of games) as a metric of domination. I wonder what the highest ratio is out there over a similar period of games.

[Savin Hillbilly]

So,on Monday, the Sox will be trying to go to 7-0 on a road trip -- for only the third time since 1967.

You think they're so hot they can win on an off day? I don't think I'd go quite that far.

[Eric Van]

You think they're so hot they can win on an off day? I don't think I'd go quite that far.

Tell that to Pedroia.

I've clearly got household chores I'm avoiding too much time on my hands -- the main list has been updated with RS/G, RA/G, and average victory margin.

Amazingly, the 6.8 margin of victory is not the all-time best; in 2000 when they swept four from the Orioles and won the first game in Toronto, they outscored them 43-7. But those teams weren't nearly as good, and the streaks (road and overall) were of course shorter.

The other amazing thing is that the second lowest RS/G figure is the 1977 perfect West Coast trip (and only 1968 is lower).

[joyofsox]

Moreover, out of their 64 games, they have 50 of those wins and losses from winning and losing streaks of 3 or more games. They are 34-16 in those games. Lose 3, win 5. Lose 3, win 8. Even in the midst of this great stretch, their losses were the 3 game sweep at the hands of the White Sox.

Pretty strange year, but I have a feeling the losing streaks are in the rear view mirror.

It does seem a bit odd to look at:

LLLLLL
W
L
W
LLL
WWW
L
WWWWW
LL
W
LL
WWW
LLL
WWW
LL
WWWWWWW
L
W
L
WWWWW
LLLL
WWWWWWWWW

[joyofsox]

In 1939, the Red Sox won the first 12 games of a 22-game (!) road trip (July 4-23).

They finished with a 17-5 record.

[Al Zarilla]

In 1939, the Red Sox won the first 12 games of a 22-game (!) road trip (July 4-23).

They finished with a 17-5 record.

I had to look it up. They took the choo choo train to play the Philadelphia Athletics, then on to New York for a 5 game set the Sox swept, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, then finally the St. Louis Browns before heading home. That's a lot of hotel, restaurant and train food. Ted's rookie year also.

[Eric Van]

It does seem a bit odd to look at:

LLLLLL
W
L
W
LLL
WWW
L
WWWWW
LL
W
LL
WWW
LLL
WWW
LL
WWWWWWW
L
W
L
WWWWW
LLLL
WWWWWWWWW
L

That's not random. You'd expect a 39-27 team to have had 32.9 +/- 3.9 streaks rather than 23. That's 2.5 standard deviations less than expected, p = .005 (happens once in 182 trials in a random rearrangement of 39 wins and 27 losses).

Edited by Eric Van, 15 June 2011 - 08:30 AM.

[SumnerH]

That's not random. You'd expect a 39-27 team to have had 32.9 +/- 3.9 streaks rather than 23.

Isn't that assuming that all games have equal win/loss percentages, though? There are natural reasons that real life baseball games should show longer streaks than you'd expect from the naive assumption. Home stands and road trips are clustered, with presumably disparate odds of winning. Likewise, series are played against opponents of varying strengths. Injuries will affect contiguous blocks of games rather than random distributions. Even the cyclical nature of the rotation might lend itself toward a different distribution of streaks.

[Eric Van]

Isn't that assuming that all games have equal win/loss percentages, though? There are natural reasons that real life baseball games should show longer streaks than you'd expect from the naive assumption. Home stands and road trips are clustered, with presumably disparate odds of winning. Likewise, series are played against opponents of varying strengths. Injuries will affect contiguous blocks of games rather than random distributions.

Good points -- those would all cause more streakiness in baseball game logs than you'd expect from randomness.

Even the cyclical nature of the rotation might lend itself toward a different distribution of streaks.

Interesting you phrased it that way, because it seems likely that having different SPs each night of often widely varying quality would work to decrease the streakiness.

So the question is, which is the bigger factor?

It may well be the latter. The 2004 Sox had 79 streaks versus the expected 78.4 +/- 6.4. The 2007 Sox were even less streaky, with 87 versus an expected 79.2 + /6.1.

[jacklamabe65]

It's been 34 years, but I'll never forget the 9-game west-coast sweep in 1977. Don Aase joined the rotation in July, and they took off like a rocket.

I remember that like it was yesterday. What a bunch of mashers they were.

[Al Zarilla]

It's been 34 years, but I'll never forget the 9-game west-coast sweep in 1977. Don Aase joined the rotation in July, and they took off like a rocket.

It's been 34 years since Aase came up? You know how to hurt a guy. I went to the game Aase started, and won, in Oakland on August 6, 1977. He was traded in December for...

Spoiler

Jerry Remy

Edited by Al Zarilla, 16 June 2011 - 10:50 PM.