Looking at historical inning reports
One of the really cool things about PI are the inning reports you can get for each team since 1957.
For example, did you know that the all-time-great ‘98 Yankees peaked in the 4th and 5th innings offensively (with a minor revival in the 9th), but their pitching was tops in the first and last innings. The 1st inning productivity is odd because that is the most productive inning, offensively speaking, over history, because managers work so hard to manufacture their entire lineup to focus around it, often costing production in the second and even third innings. But the Yankees held offenses back the best in the first. The 9th inning production can be explained in one word: Mariano.
Two more somewhat interesting inning reports:
- The ‘86 Tigers, for reasons I cannot explain or imagine, exploded in the 7th inning offensively.
- Last year’s historically bad Royals did not help themselves late in games. Thanks to their Hall of Fame-caliber, sterling bullpen, Kansas City would have coughed up 7.61 runs per game if every inning was the 8th inning. Wow. But even better than that, the starting pitchers decide to out-do the ‘pen: If every inning was the 3rd inning for the Royals in 2006, Kansas City would have yielded 7.67 runs per game.
Take the time to check out some fun inning reports of your own. This post took about five searches to find three interesting things, so it doesn’t take long to enjoy yourself.