Monday, June 20, 2011

183

Glad to see that Wake got his 183rd Red Sox win today. Nine more to tie a whore and some lore. Blowouts are fun, glad you got to see it. I didn't, because I was at a fun thing which I will post pictures of on Monday. Clue: it's a baseball thing.

Cubs blew it against the Yanks tonight, so we're still 1.5 up as we come home to face the team DAVE ROBERTS coaches first base for.

Comments:
I'm slightly embarrassed to express the idea that I actually have no idea how a team can be up .5 of a game... either we win, or we lose, right? We're either a game ahead, tied, or behind is all that I can comprehend.... would you mind giving me an explanation? even better, should I ask for a video answer? Hmm decisions, decisions...

Hint: please help :)
-Sunshine
 
Easy. Let's say there are two teams in the entire league. Team A plays Team B every game. Team A wins game one, so they're 1 game up. They win again, they're 2 games up. 2-0 is 2 games better than 0-2.

Now let's say a new team joins the league and beats Team A. Team A had been 2 games up on Team B, but with their loss (against Team C) they become 1.5 ahead of Team B. Because unlike before when a Team A win meant a Team B loss, it's just half of that: a Team A win and nothing for Team B. That's why when you play on a given night and another team doesn't, you gain or lose a half game on them. When you both play, one will gain or lose a full game (or stay even).

The way to calculate how many games behind your team is: take the difference in wins and the difference in losses and average them out. So if you have three less wins and one more loss, the average of 1 and 3 is 2, so you're 2 back. If you have three less wins and two more losses, the average of 2 and 3 is 2.5, so you're 2.5 back.

When it gets confusing is if you have less wins AND less losses (or more wins and more losses) than another team. Because then your averaging involves negative numbers. Three fewer wins and two fewer losses means you're averaging out 3 and -2, which is .5 so you'd be .5 behind.

(Another way to think of all this is to double all the games ahead/behind numbers. Like you're saying, a game is a game, so why not refer to "a half game" as "a game"--everything could be doubled to avoid halves. In which case the Red Sox would be "three games up" right now. I like it!)
 
You're my hero.
 

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