June 26, 2011: Mariners 2, Marlins 1 (39-39)

An unusual thing happened today: the Mariners game went into extra innings. After nine, the teams were tied, and so had to keep playing until a lone victor could be determined. Now, I, personally, find it unusual that this sort of event is unusual. Could it really be so rare that two major league baseball teams are evenly matched? After all, ninety percent of teams have win percentages between .400 and .600. It seems that teams should battle to a standstill all the time.

It’s really weird that reality doesn’t agree with the intuition, so let’s take a step back and examine the logic. It goes like this: Teams, in general, are very similar in talent level. Therefore, it should be common for evenly-matched teams to play, and thus it should be common for teams to battle to a tie. This sounds good, so why isn’t it true? Well, there’s another implied assumption that should go between those two sentences, and it’s this: The outcome of baseball games is largely determined by talent. The data forces us to conclude that this assumption is wrong – a conclusion that actually jibes with conventional baseball wisdom. Any grizzled old timey baseball man could tell you that there's lots of stuff other than pure athletic talent that goes into a baseball game. There’s luck, and chance, and variance, and flukes, and bad breaks, and freak accidents, and acts of God. There’s all those things and more. It’s a beautiful game, with so many compelling factors to consider. That’s baseball, the exciting game of meaningless random events. It’s kind of like life.

In more specific news, today’s win increases the Mariners’ odds of making the playoffs from 21.1% all the way up to 22.9%. My bones are literally vibrating from excitement. An extra 1.8% chance at getting a roughly 10% chance at actually winning a championship? Hoo baby. A World Series win would mean so, so much to the city of Seattle, and that extra 9/5000 could make all the difference in the world. Will it happen? Will the Seattle Mariners flip heads five-and-a-half times in a row, or will they choke like a bunch of big choking losers? In only 95 to 103 games, we’ll find out. I can’t wait.