What happens after we need to go something like 18-0 and lose? Do we push boldly onward with this, negative losses included?
Les Barves are 75-60. 27 games left. Lets say, for grins and giggles, they go 12-12 in their non-Nats games. We are 68-68. We would need to go 19-4 in our non-Barves games to get to 87-72, making @ Barves series winner take all. 18-5 & we take the Barves series 2-1, we get a playoff. Our best stretch of the year was from 4/29- 5/30, when we went 22-6.
By the way, to show you how messed up this year, our Pythag record (based on runs scored and allowed) is 76-60. 8 games worse. Tells you about performance in close games and the effect of some huge blowouts on stats.
That's actually a decent amount of it. The Nats' four biggest losses this year are 11-0, 12-1, 12-2, and 10-2, a total of -40 runs. The four biggest wins are 25-4, 15-0, 18-4, and 15-2. That's 63 runs, or a difference of roughly 2 expected wins over the -40 depending on which version of the wins formula you use. Either way, the formulas regress to the mean, so it's pretty unusual to see middling teams with run differentials that are either strongly positive or strongly negative, but the phenomenon above (non-normal distribution) does go some way to explaining it.
It's also probably fair to point out that even a 76-60 Pythagorean record is only .558, or a 90-91 win pace. That's not a team that could justifiably feel too shafted at not making the playoffs, despite the fact that it would be right there with the Barves right now.
