2022 MLB World Series a Mis-Match on Paper
October 24, 2022
In the era of divisional postseason play that was introduced in 1969, only the 1976 Cincinnati Red with a 7-0 record have gone undefeated in the major league baseball playoffs. With series records of 3-0 against the Seattle Mariners in the American League Divisional Series and 4-0 against the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series, the Houston Astros matched what the Reds did, but the Astros need to win four more straight games in the World Series to run the table. Since the playoffs were expanded to a wild card round in 1995, no team has won the World Series without losing at least one playoff game.
The Astros are not a fluke. The team completed the regular season with 106 wins, second only to the Los Angeles Dodgers, against just 56 losses. After a record of 11-10 in April, Houston went 21-8 in May, 16-9 in June, 19-9 in July, 17-11 in August and 22-9 over the remainder of the regular season that ended on October 5. This will be Houston’s fourth trip to the World Series since 2017, having won in seven games in 2017 but losing in 7 games in 2019 and in six games in 2021. The Astros also played in both the 2018 and 2020 American League Championship Series but lost each time.
This year’s World Series between the championship winners of the American and National Leagues pits the Astros against the Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies are 9-2 in the playoffs so far but have not been to the world series since back-to-back appearances in 2008 and 2009. They won in 2008 but lost in 2009.
The Phillies had underperformed expectations much of the 2022 regular season, winning just 87 games and losing 75. The team’s record at the end of May was only 21-29. Helped by a managerial change, they then went 19-8 in June, 15-10 in July, and 18-11 in August before stumbling to the finish line with a 14-17 record the rest of the way. The total of 87 wins was the second fewest among a dozen teams to qualify for the post-season tournament, next to Tampa Bay’s 86 wins. To meet the Astros, the Phillies had to prevail over the New York Mets in the wild card round, over the defending champion Atlanta Braves in the divisional series, and San Diego in the National League Championship Series. Both the Mets and the Braves had won 101 games in their regular seasons.
Only twice in seasons with over 150 regular season games has a team with as few as 87 wins gone on to win the world series. Those were the 1987 Minnesota Twins and the 2000 New York Yankees, each of which had also 87 regular season victories. On paper, the Astros ought to be favored.
The 2022 post-season games have been full of unexpected developments. A quarter of the games played thus far ended in shutouts, with the loser scoring not even one run. One game went to the 18th inning, the equivalent of two full games, without a run being scored by either team. Of the ten match-ups in the bracket now completed half were sweeps, with one team winning no games. And only one of the ten-match-ups went to a final double-elimination game. If each pairing had gone the full distance, 46 games would have been played thus far, but only 34 had to be played. That’s not the outcome league owners were looking for when the playoffs were expanded to include more teams this year.
Philadelphia is bound to attract a lot of sympathetic support. Everybody likes an underdog. A win by the Phillies would be their third one, following world series victories in six games in 1980 and in five games in 2008. The Phillies also played but lost in 5 games in 1915, 4 games in 1950, 6 games in 1983, 6 games in 1993, and 6 games in 2009.
Copyright 2022, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.
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