Thanks to Carrie Muskat for collecting the following numbers:
Atlanta: 40-12
San Diego: 42-5
NY Yankees: 44-2
Cubs: 26-19
Tampa Bay: 35-10
St. Louis: 33-11
San Francisco: 31-12
Seattle: 30-13
White Sox: 34-9
Those are the records in one-run games for the teams with the most one-run games this year. Notice anything?
That’s right. Not only do the Cubs have the fewest wins in one-run games out of this group (and they’ve played in the fourth most), they also have the most losses. The explanation for playing in so many one-run games, yet having so many losses and so few wins? 2-1. 3-2. 1-0. 4-3. Those are the losses with which we’ve become all too familiar, and virtually all can be pinned on the offense.
EDIT: Wow. Total misread of the numbers. Those are the records in games in which the team allows 3 runs or fewer. The point remains the same: it’s an indictment of the Cubs’ offense. That’s what I meant to say, but between retrieving the stats and writing up the post, it got transformed in my brain. Internets 1, Ace 0.