If you watched almost any of this week’s series in St. Louis, you can speak anecdotally to how head-shakingly frustrating the Cubs’ losses to the Cardinals were. It seemed that, when the Cardinals needed a hit, the gods blessed the ball with the perfect speed, spin and angle to accommodate. By contrast, our minds tell us, the Cubs frequently hammered the ball—yesterday notwithstanding—only for a Cardinals defender to materialize, consistently, in the perfect spot to make a play.
Of course, our anecdotal memory is often flawed and biased, and sometimes flat-out wrong.
I was curious, at the end of this series, what the numbers would say about the teams’ performance. Was a 3-1 series win for the Cardinals reflective of the teams’ underlying performance? Was it the “fair” outcome?
A handful of numbers for your consideration …
Runs
Cubs: 20
Cardinals: 27
Hits
Cubs: 38
Cardinals: 42
Extra-base Hits
Cubs: 15
Cardinals: 13
Walks (batters)
Cubs: 16
Cardinals: 11
Strikeouts (batters)
Cubs: 41
Cardinals: 25
Errors
Cubs: 5
Cardinals: 2
BABIP
Cubs: .345
Cardinals: .357
wOBA
Cubs: .327
Cardinals: .360
FIP
Cubs: 4.28
Cardinals: 3.30