April 13, 2014

Lacking Walk Offs

Two teams experienced walk off wins on Saturday as Jimmy Rollins hit a home run in the tenth inning, the Phillies beating the Marlins 3-2, while David Lough singled home the winning run in the 12th inning after a Steve Lombardozzi triple as the Orioles beat the Blue Jays 2-1. I started doing a little historical research into walk-off wins, and noticed that in the 40 years the Day by Day Database covers, only two teams went the entire season without a walk-off win. The 1978 Cardinals went 0-43 in games in which they batted in the bottom of the ninth, and the 1995 Expos went 0-41. I actually went through the boxscores and checked to see if there was a bug in my coding, and indeed, these numbers hold up. The Expos at least had the excuse of playing a shorter season. The Cardinals were not very good, going 69-93, while the Expos went 66-78 after the sell-off due to the 1994 strike wiping out their chance at a World Championship.

1 thought on “Lacking Walk Offs

  1. Alex Hayes

    Brilliant info, thanks – I’ve often wondered about the regularity of walk off wins and if each team kind of gets one or two (at least) per year.

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