In the first installment, we investigated how teams did in the first game of a home series. Detroit crushed the Rays yesterday (6/4/2013) to remain perfect in home series openers this season.
Here, we will look at how the Tigers have done in 2013 in the last game of a road series off a loss.
The SDQL shortcut for series game is SG and the SDQL shortcut for the number of game in the series is SGS. So, to see all the game in 2013 in which the Tigers were playing the last game of a series off a loss, we need to set five parameters. The team has to be set to the Tigers, the season to 2013, the series game has to be set to the number of games in the series, the site has to be set to away and the previous result must be set to a loss. The SDQL is:
team=Tigers and season=2013 and SG=SGS and A and p:L
The SDQL development team spent 15 years developing a language that is both very efficient and very powerful -- as you can tell by the succinctness of the SDQL text. The p: in front of the L points the L to the team's previous games. So p:L means that the team lost their previous game. The p: prefix can be used on any parameter.
Running this query reveals that Detroit is 0-5 in this spot this season. Further research reveals that they are the ONLY team in the league that is winless in this spot this season. It is also interesting to note that other good teams have performed poorly in this spot. For example, The GIants are 1-5 and the Reds are 1-4.
The best team in the league in this spot this season is the Royals at 7-1. They were not favored in any of the eight games and their only loss was by a 4-3 margin as a 153 dog. See for yourself with this SDQL text:
team=Royals and season=2013 and SG=SGS and A and p:L
Dr M.