The winner of game 1 of the ALDS..

According to ESPN Stats & Info, winners of game 1 of the ALDS have gone on to win the series 61% of the time since 1995 (23 of 38).

Obviously if you win game 1, you are more probable to win the series. For some reason, I decided to check if they made a mistake on counting.

1995: Indians won game 1, advanced. Yankees won game 1, did not advance.
1996: Orioles won game 1, advanced. Rangers won game 1, did not advance.
1997: Orioles won game 1, advanced. Yankees won game 1, did not advance.
1998: Yankees won game 1, advanced. Red Sox won game 1, did not advance.
1999: Yankees won game 1, advanced. Indians won game 1, did not advance.
2000: Mariners won game 1, advanced. Athletics won game 1, did not advance.
2001: Indians won game 1, did not advance. Athletics won game 1, did not advance.
2002: Yankees won game 1, did not advance. Twins won game 1, advanced.
2003: Twins won game 1, did not advance. Athletics won game 1, did not advance.
2004: Twins won game 1, did not advance. Red Sox won game 1, advanced.
2005: White Sox won game 1, advanced. Yankees won game 1, did not advance.
2006: Yankees won game 1, did not advance. Athletics won game 1, advanced.
2007: Red Sox won game 1, advanced. Indians won game 1, advanced.
2008: Red Sox won game 1, advanced. Rays won game 1, advanced.
2009: Yankees won game 1, advanced. Angels won game 1, advanced.
2010: Rangers won game 1, advanced. Yankees won game 1, advanced.
2011: Yankees won game 1, did not advance. Rays won game 1, did not advance.
2012: Yankees won game 1, advanced. Tigers won game 1, advanced.
2013: Red Sox won game 1, advanced. Tigers won game 1, advanced.

I count 22 of 38. Hmm..

Either 22 or 23, it seems a bit low. If each game were like a coin flop between two teams, whichever team wins game 1 then has 11/16 or 69% chance of winning the best-of-five series.

I took a closer look at 1998~2011 and 2013, years when the ALDS were 2-2-1 format. If a home team won game 1, it had 60% chance of winning the series (9 of 15) and if an away team won game 1, it had only 53% chance of winning the series (8 of 15.) I guess the small difference came from the fact that the home team of game 1 is with the better season record.

Still less than the hypothetical probability. Maybe only the winning team used their closer, maybe if you lose game 1, you get extra motivation to win other games; I remember when I was a kid, I wasn't too concerned about losing game 1 because Andy Pettitte would pitch (and win) game 2 for us. Maybe it is just an error from small sample. I'm not really sure.

This, however, may sound hopeful to Tigers and Angels who lost game 1 today. They certainly have ability to turn things around.




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Out of curiosity, I searched for NLDS, surprisingly, winners of game 1 advanced 32 of 38 times (84%) since 1995.