Gee, it sure is tough to win a doubleheader

[Guest Mendoza Line]

Someone says it. Someone always says it on the day of a doubleheader. This time around, it was the usually-on-top-of-things Marty Noble:

]Now the Mets face two games in one day, and doubleheader splits are far more common than sweeps.

OK, I'm calling bullshit here. Sure, doubleheader splits are more common than doubleheader sweeps. But splits of any two games are more common than sweeps, because teams play closer to .500 ball than to .000 or 1.000.

Just for grins, I looked at how the Mets did in pairs of non-doubleheader games between 2000 and 2008, and compared that to how the Mets did in doubleheaders over the same period.

Pairs of non-doubleheader games
Won: 187 (27.0%)
Split: 339 (48.9%)
Lost: 167 (24.1%)

Doubleheaders
Won: 6 (21.4%)
Split: 13 (46.4%)
Lost: 9 (32.1%)

So splits happen a little more frequently in non-doubleheaders than in doubleheaders. Or, in other words, it's easier to sweep a doubleheader than to win two non-doubleheader games in a row.

This isn't perfect - there's all sorts of stuff I've ignored and simplified, and the sample size is small. But never mind that. I'm looking forward to seeing the old guy with the broom show up sometime this evening.

[metirish]

The first game is a must.

[Centerfield]

To sweep? Yes. So is the second.

[Frayed Knot]

I remember Mike & Mad Dog getting the stats on this a couple years back (all DHs, not just Met) and being absolutely stunned (them, not me) that the results were almost exactly where you'd expect them to be for any two-game stint:
- approx 25% sweeps one way, 25% sweeps the other, and splits at right around 50%

They were under the impression that the stacking two games as a DH was going to make the splits pct far higher and had been treating that as a 'fact' for years.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I think the issue is psychological. On a typical game day, you focus on the outcome and at the end of the day, for better or worse, there is one, even if you have to go into extra innings. Something is established, someone is champion of the day, you re-assess, and go forward.

With a double header, you work twice as hard knowing that, at the end of the day, there may be no decisive outcome. Nothing was settled between the teams or their fans, and --- after seven hours --- they're pretty close to the same place in the standings they started at.

And the writer has to make something of that, even when his headline is, half the time, the equivelant of "Mets, Rox Settle Nothing."

[Guest MadDog]

="Frayed Knot":3ton9rke]I remember Mike & Mad Dog getting the stats on this a couple years back (all DHs, not just Met) and being absolutely stunned (them, not me) that the results were almost exactly where you'd expect them to be for any two-game stint: - approx 25% sweeps one way, 25% sweeps the other, and splits at right around 50% They were under the impression that the stacking two games as a DH was going to make the splits pct far higher and had been treating that as a 'fact' for years.[/quote:3ton9rke] Ah, COME ON, Knot! You know we didn't deal with FACTS on this show! Say something funny, Mike!