When you write about baseball, especially for an analytically-minded site like Baseball Prospectus, you have to be quite clear about what question you’re attempting to answer for the reader in each piece you write. For a game recap, the question might be as simple as “What happened in today’s game?”. For an analysis post, the question might be “Why might this certain thing be happening this way, or at all?”. And for a projection post, the question is often, “What is most likely to happen to this certain thing in the future?”. All of those questions, in their own way, beg somewhat involved answers, usually including chains of linked propositions and a defense of some formulated hypothesis. I like writing that kind of piece, and I’ve written quite a few of them here at BP Wrigleyville. But this piece isn’t one of them. This piece is a lot simpler. The question I’m trying to answer here—and in future posts like it, if it becomes a series—is just this:
How rare is [this thing]?
That’s it. Nice and simple, nice and easy, and with a clear cut answer: It’s [this rare], and the last time it happened was [this year]. So that’s the question I’m going to answer here, and in this case the specific form of the question that I’d like to answer is this: how rare is the Cubs’ performance in one-run and extra-inning games this season? I’d like to answer that question because, anecdotally at least, I’d noticed that the Cubs seemed to be racking up quite a few one-run or extra-inning wins in the early part of the season, and so thought it might be interesting to take a look and see whether they might be threatening any long-standing records in either area. Like I said, it’s not complicated. But it does give you something to talk about at really dry cocktail parties. First, let’s take a look at the basic data. Through games played on June 21st, here are the teams with the most wins in extra innings, and their losses:
| Team | XTRA-W | XTRA-L |
| Cubs | 7 | 3 |
| White Sox | 5 | 2 |
| Cardinals | 5 | 3 |
| Nationals | 4 | 1 |
| Padres | 4 | 3 |
And here’s the same thing, but for one-run wins:
| Team | 1R-W | 1R-L |
| Cubs | 17 | 12 |
| Mariners | 15 | 12 |
| Cardinals | 14 | 11 |
| Twins | 13 | 9 |
| Braves | 13 | 10 |
So we have part of an answer: The Cubs performance in one-run and in extra-inning games this year is rare enough that it’s an outlier—they’re the league leader in wins in both regards. Why that might be the case is a very complicated question, and one that (preview alert!) my colleague Scott Lindholm will be diving into in great detail in the next few weeks. I won’t be. I’m just interested in how rare it is. In order to find that out, I asked BP’s amazing stats team to take a look back through the archives and find out what the most wins any Chicago Cubs team has achieved in extra innings in their first 70 games (the 2015 Cubs have played 67 so far). They cracked open many leather-bound books, and found the answer.* Are you ready for that answer? Are you sure? Here it is:
Ten.
When did a Cubs team win 10 extra-inning games in their first 70, you ask? To which I answer, in 1978, which was when Rick Reuschel still toed the rubber for the North Siders and the squad ended up finishing 79-83. And here’s another tidbit for you: those 10 extra-inning wins the ’78 Cubs achieved in the first 70 games of their season actually matched a major-league record, tying the 1971 New York Mets. That means that if the 2015 Cubs had won game 68, against Clayton Kershaw, in extras, as well as the next two in the same way, they would have had a piece of a major-league record. Whaddya know. The record for extra-inning wins over a full season, by the way, is 18, set by the 1988 Montreal Expos. They moved to Washington just 17 years later, and because correlation is clearly not causation, I’m going to go ahead and officially declare my hope that the Cubs don’t break that record this season, lest they consequently abscond to Puerto Rico in the early 2030s.
All right, so we have our answer for the first part of the question (the part about extra-inning games): seven extra-inning wins through the first 70 games is pretty rare, and the record there (10) is held by the 1978 Cubs. What about one-run games? Remember, the Cubs have 17 of those through their first 67 games played. What’s the major-league record there, through 70 games? Here’s the answer:
Twenty-one.
That was by the 1978 San Francisco Giants. 1978, again! It was, apparently, a good year for late and close games. The last time a team had as many as 17 one-run wins in their first 70 games was 2012, by the Dodgers, with 18. The Cubs could beat that mark this week, ironically enough against the Dodgers, but are mathematically unable to match the Giants’ record. The full-season record, by the way, is also held by the ’78 Giants, and sits at a whopping 42 such victories—47 percent of their season total. I doubt the ’15 Cubs will get that far, but you never know.
The answer to the second part of the question, then, the part about one-run games, is this: 17 one-run wins through the first 70 games is pretty rare, and the record there (21) is held by the 1978 Giants. It’s not a complicated question, and it’s not a complicated answer. But there you have it! Now you’ll have something to talk about at that next cocktail party, and something to impress your buddy born in 1978 with. Happy Tuesday!
*Due to limits in the database, all data here is post 1960. It’s possible there were amazing one-run and extra-inning teams before that date—probable, in fact—but if there were they are lost to history for the moment. Thanks, as usual, to BP’s Rob McQuown for his help with research for this piece.
Lead photo courtesy of Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports