The Yankees went down in flames to the Orioles yesterday, 10-5, leaving no small number of Yankees fans wondering if the team has any shot of making the post season.
Before you go bananas over your team’s first-game performance, consider this. Over the last 25 years, skipping 1994, the eventual World Series winners have a cumulative opening day record of 14 wins and 11 loses.
14 wins in 25 games yields a .560 winning percentage, which would translate to 90 victories over 162-game schedule.
The cumulative winning percentage of the last 25 World Series champions is .590 (2379 – 1651), which works out to approximately 96 wins in a 162-game schedule. So it seems World Series winners tend to slightly underperform on opening day, although there are a huge number of variables at work here. For example, rosters change throughout the season from trades, injuries, demotions, etc.
Bottom-line: If your team loses on opening day, it probably doesn’t mean anything. Good teams, by definition, win their games. Opening day is like any other day, so the tendency is for the good teams to win. But even great teams lose 40% of their games, so a loss on opening day doesn’t necessarily mean your team sucks.
Some useless facts:
- In the Wild Card era, only one 100-win team has won the World Series, the 1998 New York Yankees (114-48). They lost on opening day. In fact, they rolled out the gate losing four of their first five games.
- Five of the last seven World Series winners lost on opening day. The exceptions are the 2005 Chicago White Sox and 2006 St. Louis Cardinals.
- Since 1983, there have been only three World Series winners with fewer than 90 regular season wins: the 1987 Minnesota Twins (85-77), 2000 New York Yankees (87-74), and the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals (83-79). All three won on opening day.
- Since 1983, the longest opening day winning streak among World Series winners was only four games, from 1984 through 1987 (Tigers, Royals, Mets, Twins). The longest losing streak was three games, from 2002 through 2004 (Angels, Marlins, Red Sox).
- The last two World Series winners (Red Sox, Phillies) both lost on opening day.
(Just to clarify: we’re looking at opening day performance the year the team wins the World Series, not performance on opening day of the year following their win. Opening day simply means the team’s first game of the season.)
Yankees will be fine, the Orioles played a great game, but won’t play like that all year. CC Sabathia just had to get over his nerves, and will be fine next start. I still think the Yankees might get the Wild Card though, behind the Rays.