Home sweep home.
When the Seattle Mariners beat Baltimore 6-5 in 10 innings Tuesday night, it marked the first time in baseball history all 15 home teams won on the same day.
Viewing every game as a 50-50 proposition independent of all others, STATS figured the odds of a home sweep on a night with a full major league schedule was 1 in 32,768.
Now that’s home cookin’!
Research by the Elias Sports Bureau, baseball’s official statistician, indicated that previously the best performance by home teams had been 12-0 on May 23, 1914. That included four games that day in the Federal League, then considered one of three major leagues.
Checking only the American League and National League, STATS found four days when hosts went 11-0 - three of them in the 1800s. The most recent occasion was Sept. 16, 1989.
“Without saying, it’s more difficult on the road,” said manager Bruce Bochy of the World Series champion Giants. “There’s got to be a slight advantage to playing at home and I think your good teams play well at home, they win at home.”
Cleveland and Miami also needed extra innings to come out on top in their own ballparks. Other winners were: Toronto, Tampa Bay, Kansas City, Minnesota, St. Louis, Arizona, San Diego, San Francisco, the New York Mets, the Chicago Cubs, the Chicago White Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Four visiting teams got shut out: Atlanta at Tampa Bay; Colorado by the Mets; the Angels against the White Sox; and the Nationals at Dodger Stadium.
The last time home clubs went undefeated on a day with more than one game was an 8-0 record on Aug. 28, 2008 - although road squads were 7-0 on April, 2, 2013, according to STATS.
Arizona and Tampa Bay joined the majors as expansion franchises in 1998, bringing the total to 30 teams.
In the last game to finish, Seattle squandered a three-run lead in the eighth inning against the Orioles before Austin Jackson’s bases-loaded single down the right-field line won it for the Mariners at Safeco Field.
“I still didn’t know if it was fair even when he called it,” Jackson said. “I guess it hit the chalk and the rest is history.”
AP Baseball Writer Janie McCauley and AP freelancer Josh Liebeskind contributed to this report.
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