The Red Sox have an amazing record in their World Series appearances

[Bellhorn04]

There's been a lot of doom and gloom about the current state of the Sox and I've been one of the contributors.

I thought it might be nice for a change to talk about something fun and frivolous.

Some time during the just-completed World Series and our talks about the 2004 team and so on, a fact I had never really noticed before hit me: the Red Sox have an amazing record in their World Series appearances.   

Of course the team had that nasty little stretch of 85 years without winning a single title.  They made 4 World Series appearances during that period and each time they lost in the seventh game.  And of course those heartbreaking near misses contributed heavily to the talk of a C____.

What occurred to me recently was the flip side of the heartbreaks, which is that they managed to win 3 games each time.  And then I added in the fact that in their other 9 appearances they won them all.  So I thought "hey, they must have a pretty good overall W-L record."  And I crunched the numbers.  

In their 13 WS the Red Sox played 78 games.  One of them was tied.  I'm going to ignore that for the purposes of calculating the W-L record.

48 wins 29 losses = .623 winning % - the equivalent of a 101-61 regular season.

312 runs scored 254 allowed = +58 run differential

The really incredible numbers of course are for their 2004-2018 appearances.

16 wins 3 losses

108 runs scored 52 allowed = +56 differential

So what does this prove?  Absolutely nothing, of course. 

And yes Yankee fans, I know - you have 41 appearances and 27 wins.  But unlike the Sox, you've really been hammered in some of the losses!  

 

   

   

[Bellhorn04]

Here's a hilarious but true thing I didn't know until I performed this exercise.

The 1918 Red Sox won the World Series 4-2.

There were a total of 19 runs scored in the 6 games.  The Red Sox scored 9 of them.

The biggest blowout was Game 5, won by the Cubs 3-0.

[moonslav59]

Good thread, Bell.

So many 4-3 WS losses really helps the overall record. We've never lost a WS by even a 2-4 record. That is pretty amazing.

We are 16-3 in our last 4 WS. Combined there is not enough losses for even one series loss.

[mvp 78]

Anything before 1967 doesn't count for the Sox IMO. Talk about ancient history. 

[Bellhorn04]

50 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Anything before 1967 doesn't count for the Sox IMO. Talk about ancient history. 

Yeah, who was that Ted Williams guy anyway?

[mvp 78]

51 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Yeah, who was that Ted Williams guy anyway?

A guy who wouldn't have hit .400 if he played in a nonsegregated league. 

[Bellhorn04]

So a bunch of things in reply to those last two posts, mvp.

1) Thanks for starting an argument, this should boost the post count for the thread by half a dozen at least. 🙂

2) What do you have against history, man?  All life becomes history, so if you don't appreciate history, you don't appreciate life. 🙂

3) Williams's .406 season is held up as his signature achievement, but us Talksox intelligentsia know that batting average is not one of the better measures of performance.

4) I believe Williams was very candid that he benefited from the advantages of baseball not having all the best players for a long time, and also from not having to face tough relief pitchers etc.  He had a big ego but he was also very realistic.

5) Williams continued to produce at roughly the same level long after the color barrier was broken.  In 1957 at age 38, he posted a 1.257 OPS and 233 OPS+, compared to 1941's 1.287 and 235.  

[mvp 78]

1 hour ago, Bellhorn04 said:

So a bunch of things in reply to those last two posts, mvp.

Ted Williams was a great baseball player and maybe one of the best hitters who ever lived.

The Boston Red Sox didn't enter the modern era until the 1967 Impossible Dream team. Most Sox fans will admit that the organization was lost in the wilderness due to ownership mismanagement until 1967. The game is so far away from what it was prior to integration that it's hard to count any championships from before then. It's like football from before the Super Bowl, it existed but as something largely different. When Pesky held the ball, it was against all white players. Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. Pumpsie Green didn't start a game until 1959. 

When my son asked me last night how many World Series the Sox won, I said 9. We know only 4 of them really matter though. Nobody is strutting around about the first 5. 

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

When my son asked me last night how many World Series the Sox won, I said 9. We know only 4 of them really matter though. Nobody is strutting around about the first 5. 

The Babe: "When I won three rings in Boston, I batted last in the batting order!"

Harry Hooper: "Ya, well I won four rings for the Red Sox -- as the leadoff hitter..."

[mvp 78]

1 minute ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

The Babe: "When I won three rings in Boston, I batted last in the batting order!"

Harry Hooper: "Ya, well I won four rings for the Red Sox -- as the leadoff hitter..."

Is that a line from the Dropkick's version of Tessie? 

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

Is that a line from the Dropkick's version of Tessie? 

Dunno -- I muted whenever NESN played them yelling.

[mvp 78]

19 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

Dunno -- I muted whenever NESN played them yelling.

Do they still play that at Fenway? I didn't hear it when I was there this year. 

[Bellhorn04]

2 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

When my son asked me last night how many World Series the Sox won, I said 9. We know only 4 of them really matter though. Nobody is strutting around about the first 5. 

Not strutting for sure, but I'd rather have those other 5 titles on the franchise's books than not have them there.

[moonslav59]

Ted also played before they added the bullpen in RF at Fenway.

This might have helped his BA but hurt his HR totals.

[mvp 78]

1 hour ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Not strutting for sure, but I'd rather have those other 5 titles on the franchise's books than not have them there.

IDK, they are pretty meaningless to me. 

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

Ted also played before they added the bullpen in RF at Fenway.

This might have helped his BA but hurt his HR totals.

Bullpens as a missing structure in general were the main reason star hitters padded their stats in the days when starting pitchers were expected to go the distance.

Imagine studs like Williams and DiMaggio licking their chops, waiting to swing against a guy in a fourth time through the order... especially if the hurler was tiring and his stuff was slowing down or not as sharp. 

And if a manager did have to bring in a reliever, it often wasn't a specialist, but someone just not good enough to make the rotation. Bombs away!