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The Cubs haven’t been more than 1 game over or under .500 all season

Posted by Andy on April 21, 2011

Thanks to a reader identifying himself or herself as "fajita" for this little nugget.

Through 18 games, the Cubs have yet to ever be more than 1 game above or below .500:

Gm# Date Tm Opp R RA Inn W-L Rank GB Win Loss Save Time Attendance Streak
1 boxscore CHC PIT L 3 6 0-1 3 1.0 Correia Dempster Hanrahan 3:03 41,358 -
2 boxscore CHC PIT W 5 3 1-1 2 1.0 Marshall Meek Marmol 2:52 35,782 +
3 boxscore CHC PIT L 4 5 1-2 3 2.0 Karstens Marmol Hanrahan 2:42 30,857 -
4 boxscore CHC ARI W 4 1 2-2 3 1.5 Wells Saunders Marmol 2:49 26,292 +
5 boxscore CHC ARI W 6 5 3-2 2 1.5 Russell Demel Marshall 3:17 27,039 ++
6 boxscore CHC ARI L 4 6 3-3 3 2.5 Galarraga Dempster Putz 2:26 32,272 -
7 boxscore CHC @ MIL W 7 4 4-3 3 1.0 Zambrano Wolf Marmol 2:56 34,310 +
8 boxscore CHC @ MIL L 0 6 4-4 3 2.0 Narveson Garza 2:45 42,478 -
9 boxscore CHC @ MIL L 5 6 4-5 4 2.0 Loe Wood Axford 2:59 37,193 --
10 boxscore CHC @ HOU W 5 4 5-5 2 2.0 Dempster Figueroa Marmol 3:15 20,175 +
11 boxscore CHC @ HOU L 2 11 5-6 4 3.0 Myers Russell 3:04 23,523 -
12 boxscore CHC @ HOU W 9 5 6-6
 3 2.0 Zambrano Rodriguez 2:54 20,987 +
13 boxscore CHC @ COL L 0 5 6-7 4 2.0 Chacin Garza 2:22 30,285 -
14 boxscore CHC @ COL W 8 3 7-7 4 2.0 Coleman Hammel 3:22 40,264 +
15 boxscore CHC @ COL L 5 9 7-8 3 2.0 Betancourt Mateo 3:42 42,212 -
16 boxscore CHC SDP W 1 0 10 8-8 2 1.0 Marmol Qualls 2:26 36,597 +
17 boxscore CHC SDP W 2 1 11 9-8 1 Tied Samardzija Gregerson 3:59 35,544 ++
18 boxscore CHC SDP L 4 5 9-9 1 Tied Harang Russell Bell 2:49 35,095 -
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/21/2011.

That means that they haven't had any losing or winning streaks of more than 2 games, also means that they have had records of 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, 4-4, 5-5, 6-6, 7-7, 8-8, and 9-9 so far this season.

I have no idea what teams holds the record for this although I can't imagine it's many more games than the 18 the Cubs have already gone. Anybody have any idea?

Related posts:

    2010 Cubs: Blowout Specialists
    Comparison between tonight’s Cubs-Red Sox game and the 1918 World Series
    Bloops: Which Cubs Game Did Ferris Bueller Attend?
    Streaking Cubs
    The Cubs Suck In Extra Innings (and other bits)

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 21st, 2011 at 3:03 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

18 Responses to “The Cubs haven’t been more than 1 game over or under .500 all season”

  1. Dave Says:
    April 21st, 2011 at 4:11 pm

    The Pirates started 2009 like that
    6-6 after 12 games in almost the exact same manner.

  2. DavidRF Says:
    April 21st, 2011 at 7:09 pm

    Lately, there's a 6-6 team almost every year. Here are the ones that make it to 7-7.

    2008 - Yankees 7-7
    2004 - Yankees 8-8
    1996 - Tigers 8-8
    1985 - White Sox 7-7

    My search is only "semiautomatic". I'll look more when I'm not at work.

  3. DavidRF Says:
    April 21st, 2011 at 7:17 pm

    I lied. Maybe work isn't that important.

    1975 BAL 7-7
    1970 NYN 9-9
    1961 BOS 7-7

    OK... found a matching team. Need to stop now.

  4. Neil L. Says:
    April 21st, 2011 at 8:02 pm

    Yay, Andy's back!

  5. Andy Says:
    April 21st, 2011 at 8:07 pm

    Huh?

  6. Neil L. Says:
    April 21st, 2011 at 8:16 pm

    I thought you were on the road and couldn't post. Sorry.

  7. DavidRF Says:
    April 21st, 2011 at 8:37 pm

    Here's the rest of the 1900s....

    1957 NYG 7-7
    1936 PHI 7-7
    1930 BSN 8-8
    1923 CIN 7-7
    1918 PIT 7-7
    1915 BOS 9-9-1

    It gets a lot less common. Less teams but still...

  8. fajita Says:
    April 21st, 2011 at 8:45 pm

    to start a season 9-9 (while hitting all the integers along the way), this has only been done two other teams (davidRF found them):
    1915 BOS 9-9-1
    1970 NYN 9-9

    however, i also looked beyond the start of the season to search for the longest stretch. the 1939 dodgers went 34 games hitting each integer at .500 along the way starting:
    38-38 (july 19)
    to
    54-54 (aug 19)

    and here are the rest of the teams that put together stretches of at least 20 games:

    CHN-1959 14
    NYN-2010 13
    SLN-1986 12
    CHA-1908 11
    BAL-1959 10
    CHN-1936 10
    CIN-1933 10
    CIN-1977 10
    MLN-1961 10
    NYN-2005 10

  9. DavidRF Says:
    April 21st, 2011 at 8:49 pm

    And here is the 19th century:

    1890 BRP (PL) 9-9
    1884 CL5 (AA) 7-7
    1882 CN2 (AA) 9-9
    1874 PH1 (NA) 7-7

  10. DavidRF Says:
    April 21st, 2011 at 8:50 pm

    It did NOT happen in 1879, that's for sure. Check out the standings on May 2:

    http://www.baseball-reference.com/games/standings.cgi?date=1879-05-02

    No 1-1 teams that year. As far as I can tell, that's the only year that happened.

  11. DavidRF Says:
    April 21st, 2011 at 9:03 pm

    Those 19th century team codes are not very familiar looking. The two 9-9 teams are the 1882 Cincinnati Red Stockings (Reds first season) and the 1890 Brooklyn Ward's Wonders

    http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CIN/1882-schedule-scores.shtml
    http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BWW/1890-schedule-scores.shtml

  12. John Autin Says:
    April 21st, 2011 at 9:42 pm

    In any case ... if the Cubs keep bringing Jeff Samardzija into real live major-league ballgames, they'll have a losing streak soon enough.

  13. eorns Says:
    April 21st, 2011 at 10:32 pm

    On a related note, a few years ago I remember doing a search for the largest alternating W-L-W-L streak and I believe the record was 16 games. Can't remember who it was, though. Would love to see an updated version!

  14. josh24 Says:
    April 22nd, 2011 at 5:39 am

    #10 - No team had 1-1 record:
    1901 AL
    1911 AL
    1912 AL
    1917 NL
    1923 AL
    1933 AL
    1951 AL
    1956 AL
    1973 NL
    1977 NL
    1987 NL
    1994 AL

    And, as you already mentioned, 1879 in the only year in which no team in ML did it.

  15. josh24 Says:
    April 22nd, 2011 at 6:01 am

    #13 - 15 games is the record.
    1974 PHI - June 4 to June 20, game #52 to #66
    http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/PHI/1974-schedule-scores.shtml

    1981 LAD - June 7 to Aug 21, game #54 to #68
    http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/LAD/1981-schedule-scores.shtml

    2010 COL - Aug 3 to Aug 19, game #106 to #120
    http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/COL/2010-schedule-scores.shtml

    Some can say that these are 16-game streaks (if we add the game that is right before the streak begins), but I see it this way: "Most consecutive games having a result (W/L/T) different from the previous game".

    Other facts: There have been 185 streaks of this kind of at least 10 G, with the 1905 PHA being the only team with 3 streaks in the same season (10,10, and 14). 1979 NYY had 2 streaks, spanning from Aug 22 to Sept 16; a 23-game span, with streaks of 10 and 11, respectively.

    Note: I only have data for streaks in the same season, not jumping from one to another.

  16. Hire Jim Essian - Uncle Mike’s Friday BROWSing: The “Half a Game Back” Edition Says:
    April 22nd, 2011 at 8:02 am

    [...] And speaking of approximately .500 baseball, WIN. [...]

  17. Bob Says:
    April 22nd, 2011 at 8:17 am

    They did have a winning streak of two games between games 3-5.

  18. Darren Delgado Says:
    April 24th, 2011 at 5:35 pm

    This is slightly off-topic but related:in 1999, some time in May, I realized there were no 3-1 finals in the NL, and no 2-0 games in the AL. I started following it with some interest until each happened in late May (the Angels beat the Yankees 2-0 on May 13 and the Giants beat the Astros 3-1 on May 22).

    Has there ever been a season when a relatively common score never made it to completion all the way through the season?

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