Interesting MLB extra innings trend

[Rich Boy]

Historically, road teams win games in extra innings by 2 or more runs roughly 22% of the time.

However, in regular innings, teams only score 2 or more runs roughly 14.4% of the time.

Anyone have an explanation for this?

[Pancho sanza]

Historically, road teams win games in extra innings by 2 or more runs roughly 22% of the time.

However, in regular innings, teams only score 2 or more runs roughly 14.4% of the time.

Anyone have an explanation for this?

They may have multiple attempts to score in extras, picture a game that goes 14 innings.

So yes in any given inning it may be only 14.4 % but the odds of them scoring 2+ runs when they have more than 1 inning to try and score will go up.

[Rich Boy]

They may have multiple attempts to score in extras, picture a game that goes 14 innings.

So yes in any given inning it may be only 14.4 % but the odds of them scoring 2+ runs when they have more than 1 inning to try and score will go up.

Re-read what I wrote. I said to WIN the game by 2+. Doesnt matter how many innings you play.

[TomG]

why not just compare the % of time road teams score 2 or more runs in extra innings vs. % of time road teams score 2 or more runs in the first 9?

why are you mixing up whether or not they win and by how much?

[Pancho sanza]

Re-read what I wrote. I said to WIN the game by 2+. Doesnt matter how many innings you play.

Thats not what u said.

They win by 2 + in non extra inning games by something like 35 % of the time.

Your extra innings # of 22 % looks right.

[dbear808]

Teams generally allocate 11 or 12 roster spots to pitchers. Roughly half of them are starting pitchers and generally are unavailable to pitch in relief. We rank the rest of the pitchers on a scale where the best pitcher is 1 and the worst is 6. Roughly 9 of 10 MLB games are decided in 9 innings or less. The manager manages every game as if it were to end at the end of 9 innings. So he will use pitchers 1, 2 and 3 as the situation dictates. Home teams often use pitcher 1(their closer) during this time because they must keep the game tied, whereas the visiting team manager often does not find himself in this do or die situation. In later innings the only pitchers left are the back of the bullpen (pitchers 4,5,6). Not much quality available. But they have to get through the game. Bad pitchers give up crooked numbers i.e. 2 or more runs. If the visiting team scores 2 or more runs, they usually have their closer available to maintain the sizable lead they earned, so many times the visiting lead stays at more than one run. The home team only has to have one run more than their opponent, so they play "small ball" to maximize their chances of scoring exactly one run.

[Rich Boy]

Thats not what u said.

They win by 2 + in non extra inning games by something like 35 % of the time.

Your extra innings # of 22 % looks right.

Are you illiterate?

I said teams score 2 or more runs in any given inning 14.4% of the time. If that is the case, how can they possibly win extra innings games by 2+ more than 14.4% of the time?

[That Foreign Guy]

What % of innings in which runs are scored (by either team) do the visiting team out score the home team by 2+?

[Pancho sanza]

Are you illiterate?

I said teams score 2 or more runs in any given inning 14.4% of the time. If that is the case, how can they possibly win extra innings games by 2+ more than 14.4% of the time?

You are hopelessly confused here.

Just like you are when you post stupid questions at bigtip.ca

[pedro803]

never mind -- my mistake

[jetsjets1028]

except for red sux who pound opponents when i dont go

[Rich Boy]

TomG made a good point. So I went back and hand tracked every extra innings game for the past 2 seasons.

I found something quite interesting.

Road teams in extra innings (ie 10th inning or later, I also included the 9th inning if it was tied after 8 innings) are scoring 1+ run ~21% of the time, and scoring 2+ runs ~9.2% of the time

Both of which are lower than "regular" inning averages. I guess some of that could be attributed to the fact that games with lower totals are more likely to go into extra innings than games with higher totals, so the runs per inning would be slightly lower. But a 5% difference is pretty large.

My sample included 731 road innings.

[Rich Boy]

Went though my game log and found this:

Given that a game goes to extra innings, it will end in the

10th inning - 45.06% of the time
11th inning - 28.19% of the time
12th inning - 12.53% of the time
13th inning - 7.47% of the time
14th inning - 3.86% of the time
15th inning - 1.45% of the time
16th inning - .96% of the time
17+ inning - .05% of the time

[Rich Boy]

I tried to see if there was any correlation between duration of extra innings game and probability of the road team winning by 2 runs.

From this specific sample (2008 and 2009 seasons), a total of 415 extra innings games:

Road teams are winning extra innings games by 2+ runs 20.24% of the time

Given the game goes 11 or more innings, the road team is winning by 2+ runs 21.05% of the time
Given the game goes 12 or more innings, the road team is winning by 2+ runs 21.6% of the time
Given the game goes 13 or more innings, the road team is winning by 2+ runs 18.6% of the time

After that, the sample gets too small