The Volokh Conspiracy

I try to limit the number of baseball posts, as I know that's not really our focus here. However, I can't resist congratulating the Red Sox on another amazing playoff comeback to win the American League Championship series. They overcame a 3-1 deficit, and outscored a strong Cleveland Indians team 30-5 over the last 3 games. Yay!!!!!!!!!!

From a sabermetric point of view, the interesting thing about the series is that the Red Sox hammered the Indians' two ace starters - C.C. Sabathia (my pick for the AL Cy Young Award) and Fausto Carmona - in all four of their starts and went 3-1 in those games. Yet the Indians managed to get enough good work out of their 3-4 starters and bullpen to almost win the series. Both of these events are unlikely occurrences. But low-probability events do happen in short playoff series, and this is the second straight Indians-Red Sox series where the Sox won three must-win games in a row to stave off elimination (the other was the 1999 AL Division Series).

In any event, I'm going to kick back and enjoy the World Series. If nothing else, a series held at Fenway Park and Coors Field should be extremely interesting, with lots of scoring. I think that the Red Sox are stronger than the Rockies in all three phases of the game, and posted a significantly better record while playing in a stronger league. However, anything can happen in a short series, so a Rockies victory would not be a huge surprise.

	[Ilya Somin, October 22, 2007 at 1:07am] Trackbacks Go Red Sox! I try to limit the number of baseball posts, as I know that's not really our focus here. However, I can't resist congratulating the Red Sox on another amazing playoff comeback to win the American League Championship series. They overcame a 3-1 deficit, and outscored a strong Cleveland Indians team 30-5 over the last 3 games. Yay!!!!!!!!!! From a sabermetric point of view, the interesting thing about the series is that the Red Sox hammered the Indians' two ace starters - C.C. Sabathia (my pick for the AL Cy Young Award) and Fausto Carmona - in all four of their starts and went 3-1 in those games. Yet the Indians managed to get enough good work out of their 3-4 starters and bullpen to almost win the series. Both of these events are unlikely occurrences. But low-probability events do happen in short playoff series, and this is the second straight Indians-Red Sox series where the Sox won three must-win games in a row to stave off elimination (the other was the 1999 AL Division Series). In any event, I'm going to kick back and enjoy the World Series. If nothing else, a series held at Fenway Park and Coors Field should be extremely interesting, with lots of scoring. I think that the Red Sox are stronger than the Rockies in all three phases of the game, and posted a significantly better record while playing in a stronger league. However, anything can happen in a short series, so a Rockies victory would not be a huge surprise.