Corey Noles, staff writer for The Daily Statesman and Editor of The North Stoddard Countian, is the author of a regular baseball/St. Louis Cardinals column and also uses his blog to sound off on various happenings in sports. He also operates a weekly baseball mailbag column.

Cardinals/Pirates numbers tell an interesting story

Posted Tuesday, September 17, 2013, at 11:39 AM

The St. Louis Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Pirates seem like they have been within a game of each other all season.

There's a reason for that--they almost have been.

The idea that neither team can gain any ground is more than just a feeling (Boston pun intended.)

Thanks to a savvy reader, a very interesting correlation was pointed out Tuesday morning. They obviously share them same overall record and winning percentage or there would be no tie, but the numbers tell a more interesting story.

The Cardinals and Pirates have identical home and road splits.

As of Tuesday, Sept. 17, each team is 48-27 at home and 39-36 on the road. Like I said, that feeling that every time the Cardinals win so do the Pirates isn't a feeling, it's fact.

But the similarities don't start there. Following are a number of interesting stories within the numbers.

* Each team's biggest lead in the division has been by only four games. For the Cardinals, that happened on Sunday, June 9. For the Pirates, it was on Saturday, Aug. 10.

* Each team's biggest deficit under first place is also only four games. For the Cardinals, that was on Aug. 10, the same day the Pirates had their widest margin. For the Pirates, that day was on Sunday, June 20.

* Both the Cardinals and the Pirates longest game this season was 16 innings. For the Cardinals, it's happened twice--once on April 3 and once on Sept. 4. The Pirates 16 inning game was on Sunday, Aug. 18.

* Each team has been shutout by opponents 11 times this season.

* The Cardinals first half record was one game better than the Pittsburgh Pirates. To date, the Pirates second half record is one game better than the Cardinals.

* The teams have identical records against four teams: the Atlanta Braves (3-4), Miami Marlins (4-2), New York Mets (5-2) and the Oakland Athletics (1-2.)

* The Pirates own the season series against the Cardinals by only one game (10-9.)

While there are a lot of similarities, there are also many differences. Just for fun, here are a few of those.

* The Cardinals are considerably better in--and have been involved in more--blowout games. The Cardinals are 32-17 in games decided by more than five runs. The Pirates are 17-14.

* Despite their close records, the Cardinals have scored far more runs. In 149 games, the Cardinals have scored 715 runs, while allowing 556. The Pirates have scored 580 runs and allowed 534.

* In extra innings, the Cardinals are 5-5 with a .500 winning percentage. The Pirates are 9-8 with a .529 winning percentage.

* The Pirates have a slight edge in one-run games (28-21) over the Cardinals (17-15.)

As the season winds down, each team is well aware that everything is on the line. Each win, run and even pitch could be the difference in a division championship and Wild Card play-in game.

As tight as it has been so far, don't be shocked if this race comes down to the last night.

Stats current as of Sept. 17, 2013, via http://baseball-reference.com/

Corey Noles is a Cardinals Writer and Columnist for The Daily Statesman. He is also a regular contributor to StLSportsPage.com, KSDK.com and Bleacher Report. Contact him at cnoles@dailystatesman.com or on Twitter @coreynoles.

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To try and wrap my brain around how similar the numbers are is kind of mind boggling over a 140+ games thus far. With the Cards scoring a lot more runs leads me to believe the they're more hot n' cold/all-or-nothing offensively on a given night.

-- Posted by Grussman on Tue, Sep 17, 2013, at 3:36 PM
It isn't so much hot and cold. The Cards have just had a much better offense in terms of run generation. Pittsburgh has played in 49 one run games. The Cards have only played in 32. Over the course of a season, how lucky a team has been can be derived out of statistics like record in one run games. Most every team should be around .500 in one run games. The Pirates have been similar to the Orioles from last year in that to this point, they have been slightly lucky in close games and have played in a lot of close games. The Cards have clearly been more talented than their opponents as can be noted by the run differential. This luck in close games as well as a more difficult schedule are why the Cards seem slightly more likely to win the division over this final stretch and also why the Cards seem like a team with slightly better odds to win in the playoffs.

-- Posted by sideline starter on Tue, Sep 17, 2013, at 3:53 PM
I don't have the statistics to prove anything and don't even know where to look but it just seems like there has a been a trend this season where they have very little offense in a stretch of games but then have these absolutely crazy offensive outbursts where they score a ton of runs in individual games/stretches of games that keep the total amount of runs scored, run average and differential looking really good. Then there's the unusually high average with RISP and it seems like they should have an even better record than they do.

-- Posted by Grussman on Wed, Sep 18, 2013, at 7:56 AM
Good hook up with the stat Corey. Well you would think with the high RISP they would have won more games but because its as high as it is you can point to it as the difference between this year's win total and last year's

-- Posted by Bunk on Wed, Sep 18, 2013, at 10:21 AM
That is helpful, Corey, thanks. Adding this along with what Sideline mentions helps paint a good overall picture...at least to me. :) And yes, last night is another example. I know it's a super small sample size but the last four games is a snapshot of what much of the season seems like:

Cardinals 11 Rox 4

Cardinals 2 Rox 6

Cardinals 12 M's 2

Cardinals 1 M's 4

It's feast or famine. You never know which offense is going to show up. If they could distribute the runs a little more evenly they'd have a scary-good record!

-- Posted by Grussman on Wed, Sep 18, 2013, at 11:24 AM
Corey is putting baseball-reference.com to good use here in this discussion.

-- Posted by Jolly Dump on Wed, Sep 18, 2013, at 2:52 PM

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