The Astros crushed the Orioles last night, scoring 23 runs while only allowing two.
It was the most runs any team has scored in a single game this year. It was the largest margin of victory in any game this year. And beyond even those markers, records were set all over the place:
- 23 is now the most runs the Astros have ever scored in a game.
- The 13 extra-base hits by Houston were the most they’ve ever notched in a game.
- Carlos Correa’s third-inning 474-foot home run was the furthest tracked at Camden Yards in the Statcast era.
- The 62 games in which the Orioles have allowed multiple home runs this year is a historic pace through their 116 games (and they’re poised to shatter the total record for home runs allowed in a season, as they’re only 18 short now).
Of course, for the Orioles, something similar to this happened just twelve years ago, when the Rangers beat them 30-3. But that was a stranger anomaly. For one thing, it was a worse blowout. But for another, the Rangers were four and a half games back of the O’s heading into that night. Baltimore wasn’t even in last place in their division, and actually entered the game with a positive run differential (of eleven runs, which was erased in the top of the sixth inning and buried for good in the eighth).
This time, it didn’t feel so unexpected. The Orioles entered the night on pace to allow 995 runs, just shy of 1,000, a total that hasn’t been reached since 1999. The Astros aren’t scoring at an historic rate, but they’re scoring at a high rate (sixth in the MLB entering last night, fourth in the MLB exiting last night), and they have the best wRC+ in the game by a good margin. They’ve scored 14 in a game twice this year, and 15 twice as well. Putting these two teams on the same field felt like it came with the risk of a 21-run blowout, making the result seem unsurprising.
But it’s a stunning result. There are 2,430 scheduled regular season games each season in the MLB. Through last night, there have been 1,755 games completed in this specific MLB season. Before the Astros’ outburst, no team had scored more than 19 runs in a single game this year, and no team had won by more than 17. Which means one team scoring 20 or more runs has now only happened in 0.06% of all MLB games this year, and the same is true for winning by 18 or more. Even with one of the best offenses in the league, the Astros only score 1.86 more runs per game than the Marlins and Tigers (the league’s lowest-scoring offenses). Even with one of the worst pitching staffs in the league, the Orioles only allow 2.52 more runs per game than the Dodgers (the league’s staunchest pitching staff to date). The Astros took two things that hadn’t happened all year and have now happened in fewer than a tenth of a percent of all games this year and did both with three runs to spare.
This isn’t to say that in the scope of the season such a game is shocking. Rolling a Yahtzee (five dice showing the same number) on a single roll is 0.07% likely to happen, but if you’ve played enough Yahtzee, you’ve probably seen this occur. It’s the same way with the MLB’s large sample size: if you play enough games, eventually a team will win 23-2.
But that doesn’t make it any less eye-popping when it does happen.
