2013 WS Game 6: 2013 Topps #527 Carlos Beltran

It has been noted that the St Louis Cardinals are up against a bit of history as they hit the Road to face the Red Sox in Boston for game 6 (and possibly 7) of the 2013 World Series.

Several sports outlets have noted the last team to take games 6 and 7 on the road is the 1979 Pirates. One knows that is a long time ago - #1 because the Pirates were involved and #2 The calendar tells us that it has been 33 years.

There is a bit of an illusion in that 33 years. The Cardinals aren’t really up against a phenomenon that only occurs once every three decades – Not all World Series find the Away team down 3-2 after 5.

2013 Carlos Beltran #527 Carlos Beltran (Green Parallel)

Lets take a look at what Carlos Beltran and the Cardinals are up against. Since the Pirates 1979 comeback v the Orioles there have been six teams that faced the same odds as the Cardinals (down 3-2 needing 2 Road Wins). A closer look at those teams provides the following:

As you can see the team that came the closest to the double road gm comeback was the 1997 Indians. In fact they came within a Save opportunity by Jose Mesa of being World Champs. The other 5 contenders all bowed out in game 6 - with 2 of those 5 being Phillies teams, including the Joe Carter game.

To me it is worth noting if you have 2 evenly matched teams the odds of either one winning back/back games is 1 in 4. The down 3-2 on the road scenario has only happend 6 times. This leads me down the small sample route - it hasn't happened in 33 years simply because it the opportunity doesn't occur that often (except to the Phillies). A probability person may conjecture that the Cardinals Winning the 2013 World Series is expected, it is just evening out the odds (or returning to the mean)

2013 PostSeason Cardinals
Matt Adams
Lance Lynn
Michael Wacha 
Adam Wainwright
Orlando Cepeda


2013 PostSeason Red Sox
Clay Buchholz
David Ortiz
Dustin Pedroia 
Shane Victorino

Carl Yastrzemski
Jose Iglesias (Now with Tigers)

Sources
baseball-ref.com