I’m not going to pretend I was ever any good at math.  But at an early age I learned how to calculate a baseball team’s magic number (sometime around September 1984) and in the year’s since it’s been like second nature to pick the day the Cubs are out of it (usually sometime in May). But I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around the disadvantages of a team chasing you having “two games in hand.”
Len Kasper mentions it every time they show the standings. The Cubs have as many losses as the Brewers, but two more wins. To me, this is a good thing. Len seems to think it’s an advantage for the Brewers who have..apparently..”two games in hand.”
Given the way teams in the NL Central seem to gain more ground on days they don’t play than any other time, why would it be bad that the Cubs have gotten to 150 games with 72 losses, while the Brewers did it in just 148?
To me, and my simple mind, having “two games in hand” would be great if you had the same number of wins as the team you’re chasing, and fewer losses.
Back when the Cubs were heading to Arizona last month, I made the case that 86 wins would guarantee the Cubs the division. At the time, the Cubs needed to go 20-13 to do it (the Brewers just 21-11). The Cubs have gone 12-9 so far. Say the Cubs went 8-4 to end the season and finish 86-76, the Brewers would have to go 10-4 to tie. So who has the games “in hand?”
I’m more confused than ever.
The Cubs may very well look back on a rainstorm in August saving their season. As hot as the Cubs were when the Sunday night game with St. Louis got washed away after three innings, the makeup game last Monday looks like it turned the season back around.
The Cubs were deader than Josh Hancock when they got on a plane in Pissburgh last Sunday. They’d lost five of seven and looked bad doing it. But they got off the plane and took a can of whoop ass (is it whup ass?) out on the Cardinals and enjoyed every second of it. It kicked off a 6-2 week in which the only losses came when the Cubs broke out the patented “let’s score four by the third and then nap the rest of the way” offense. But a couple of the wins were the balls. The amazing, stupefying 3-6-1 double play in Houston on Wednesday and the Alfonso Soriano kick to the Cardinals’ balls in the early game on Saturday were the kind of wins that teams get when they actually make the playoffs.
And look, had they lost them both, they’d have two more losses than the Brewers with two fewer games to play. Shit, that sounds like the Brewers would have “two in the hand” to me.
Stop the hand wringing over Lou using Carlos and The Bull Moose on short rest this week. If he didn’t and those last two games in Cincinnati mean something in two weeks, the Cubs would have Steve Trachsel or Sean Marshall pitching one of them. Guh.
I’m pressed for time, but I don’t want to leave this out. How about the standing ovation that the Cardinals fans gave Scott Spiezio on Friday? What the hell was that? Here’s a guy who disappeared for a month during a “pennant” race because he was all coked up and during that time the Cardinals lost player after player to injury, and when he finally shows up again he gets that kind of reception? That’s not being “forgiving” it’s being sycophantic times a billion.
Oh, and the Bears won. That’s always great. But it’d be more great if either running back could hold on to the ball and if Rex would get hit by a garbage truck.
Nicely put, Andy. I’ll take two games in the win column with two days off over the next 14 days, compared to the Cheeseheads without a day off for two weeks (including series with the Braves and Padres).
How much must it have cost Speez to bring enough coke for all the shitbird fans?
My magic number is zero. Matches the number of commitments I have for next year, my IQ and number of years I’ll coach at Illinois after this season.
I’m Bruce Weber & I can’t recruit.
Cue mouthbreathing shot.
It’s whup in hand ass.
“To me, and my simple mind, having “two games in hand†would be great if you had the same number of wins as the team you’re chasing, and fewer losses.”
To me, and my simple mind, having a 1-game lead is better than being 1 game back.
The point is that, if you have more games to play than your opponent does, your destiny is more in your hands than in theirs.
If you’re tied in the loss column and down by two wins, you have two extra games. Win these and you effectively pull even.
If you’re tied in the win column with two extra losses, even if you win out you’re still counting on the team ahead of you losing their two extra games.
Hence the importance of your record in the “all-important loss column.”
Isn’t it better to have won those two games already, when your competition hasn’t won them yet?
We can both be found in a can.
12 to play. Let’s see them close out the regular season like 2003, not like 2004.
Sep 17 Roy Oswalt’s scheduled start on Wednesday against the Brewers will be pushed back due to the pending birth of his second child, the Associated Press reports.
Doesn’t that bastard know we are in a pennant race?
I am way too invested in this, we better win…
#8,
Someone should tell Oswalt’s sister to hold off having the kid a couple of days so he can pitch against the Brewers.
#9,
BRILLIANT!
Someone should remind Oswalt that Barrett is on the Padres now.
Maybe the mullets were cheering because Scott left me in rehab.
Found here …
http://homerderby.com/archives/1211
The mullets were cheering because Spiezio left me in the Rehab facility
#12
The mullets loved that beard. They were cheering because that’s what the unwashed masses do in an “us or them” situation. In this case, I’m glad to be a “them”.
I’m still funny, and will probably remain that way for a long time
You really think I was in ‘rehab’ – I spent a month going all Ken Caminitti. Did you see my ‘fielding’ this weekend – I was so high I wanted to steal DUI Tony’s sunglasses.
Two games in hand aren’t really an advantage in baseball, where standings are based on wins and losses. In hockey, where things are based on points, there is an advantage.
If the Cubs and Brewers were tied in the loss column with the season ended, and the Brewers had to win 2 to remain tied, how would that be to their advantage?
The Cubs’ record since the make up game.
And my favorite Star Trek character.
Andy, if teams are tied in the loss column, they are tied in the standings. I say this because I am dumb.
No one here gives a shit #2.
#4 did absolutely nothing to clear up the two in hand situation. In fact, I believe he made it more unclear. I agree with Andy that I would already want to have two wins rather than need two wins. It is kind of like getting paid on Monday and the boss expecting you to work all week rather than having to work all week in order to get paid on Friday. If I get paid on Monday, I can bolt with the cash any day before Friday. If I get paid on Friday, the boss can can my ass right after I get paid. Then Monday just sucks instead of being cool because I got paid. Get it? Yeah, I didn’t understand yours either dill hole. Len is a Moran and Bob even more so because he keeps letting him say that two in hand thing without slapping the face right off his empty head. Maybe when the Cubs win this thing by one or two games Len will finally realize it is better to win more than lose the same.