Series preview: the Rays and the Tigers have scored exactly the same number of runs
Tampa Bay at Detroit. Monday 6:40pm, Tuesday 6:40pm, Wednesday 1:10pm ET, at Comerica Park. Tonight: Rays win. The series: Tampa Bay takes 2 of 3.
Both of these teams have played 130 games. Both have scored 587 runs. Not about the same, the same, to the run.
Detroit has allowed 514. Tampa Bay has allowed 543. So the Tigers have the better run differential of the 2 clubs, by 29 runs, and the better team ERA, 3.62 against 3.83.
Tampa Bay is 77-53. Detroit is 61-69. That is a 16-game gap between 2 teams whose seasons, added up, look nearly identical.
They are the 2 ends of the same distribution
Take every club's runs scored and allowed, work out the record that should have produced, and subtract. Detroit is 11.9 wins short of its run differential, the largest deficit in baseball. Tampa Bay is 7.4 wins over, the largest surplus in baseball. Nobody else is within 5 of either one.
| Team | W-L | Runs scored | Runs allowed | Expected wins | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rays | 77-53 | 587 | 543 | 69.6 | +7.4 |
| Reds | 62-69 | 537 | 631 | 55.9 | +6.1 |
| Phillies | 73-58 | 599 | 572 | 68.3 | +4.7 |
| Nationals | 61-71 | 682 | 672 | 66.9 | -5.9 |
| Angels | 52-79 | 537 | 607 | 58.2 | -6.2 |
| Tigers | 61-69 | 587 | 514 | 72.9 | -11.9 |
The 3 largest surpluses and the 3 largest deficits, with the 2 teams playing tonight at either end. Pythagorean exponent 1.83, the standard one for baseball. Expected wins are what the runs say the record should have been. Every number here comes out of scripts/pythag_chart.py all, same as the chart.
The mechanism is not mysterious
Split every game by how close it was:
| Margin | Tigers | Rays |
|---|---|---|
| 1 run | 12-22 | 18-13 |
| 2 to 4 runs | 27-36 | 42-19 |
| 5 or more | 22-11 | 17-21 |
Detroit has a winning record in exactly one bucket, and it is the bucket that decides nothing. The Tigers are the better blowout team here and the worse close-game team by a distance. Tampa Bay is the reverse, and the reverse is where the standings live.
The bullpens say the same thing another way:
| Tigers | Rays | |
|---|---|---|
| Saves / opportunities | 26 of 54 | 51 of 66 |
| Blown saves | 28 | 15 |
| Holds | 60 | 99 |
| Team ERA | 3.62 | 3.83 |
Detroit's staff is better at not allowing runs and worse at not allowing them at the moment it matters. 28 blown saves is the most in baseball, and it has been this team's whole season.
What that means for 3 days at Comerica
Less than you would like, and I would rather say so than pretend otherwise. A gap built over 130 games does not tell you who wins on a Monday. What it does tell you is which way a close game tends to break, and 2 of these 3 will probably be close.
The matchups:
| Rays | Tigers | |
|---|---|---|
| Mon 6:40pm | Drew Rasmussen 3.01, 0.95 WHIP, opponents at .206 | Framber Valdez 4.35, 1.40 WHIP, 54 walks |
| Tue 6:40pm | Ian Seymour 4.17, 1.14 WHIP | Jackson Jobe 4.50, 1.36 WHIP, 3 starts back |
| Wed 1:10pm | Freddy Peralta 5.33, 1.46 WHIP | Troy Melton 1.60, 1.00 WHIP |
Rasmussen is the best pitcher in this series and it is not close. 138 strikeouts against 25 walks in 134.1 innings, and he is the same guy in either park, 3.24 at home and 2.79 on the road. Valdez has walked 54 in about the same workload.
Detroit is also short. Riley Greene is still on the 10-day with an .816 OPS in 492 plate appearances, Kerry Carpenter and Matt Vierling are out with him, and James Outman was designated for assignment on Sunday. The lineup that put 25 runs on Tampa Bay in June is not the lineup taking the field tonight.
The one thing on Detroit's side
They swept the Rays in Tampa on June 1, 2 and 3, by a combined 25-11. All 3 were won by the offense, which is the part that has since gone.
And Wednesday is Melton against Peralta, the one starter gap in the series pointing Detroit's way. If they take a game, that is the one.
Tonight: Rays win. Confidence Low. Low because Comerica is the only place Detroit has been near even, 32-31 at home against 29-38 on the road, and because Tampa Bay has lost 7 of its last 10 as well. Both clubs arrive cold. The difference is that one of them has a bullpen.
Not betting advice.
Got a Detroit number you want looked at? Email projectunmuted@proton.me and it gets looked at properly. A stat somebody quoted that smells wrong, a thing you have always assumed about one of these 4 teams and have never seen checked. Every question that arrives is listed with its answer, including the ones where the answer is no.