Thursday, June 25, 2015

The Mets and Their Unprecedented Home/Road Splits

There's no place like home for the Mets.  It's a different story on the road, where they're wicked awful.

The Mets just completed an eight-game road trip this afternoon in Milwaukee, taking the finale against the Brewers after dropping the first seven games of the trip.  The win improved the team's road record to 11-26, which serves as a mirror image to the club's 26-11 home mark.

As bad as the team has played away from Citi Field, the Mets' .297 winning percentage on the road is not the lowest in team history.  That "honor" belongs to the 1962 through 1965 squads, who played no better than .259 ball away from home in any of those four seasons.  However, those first four Mets squads were also lousy at home, posting sub-.500 records at the Polo Grounds and Shea Stadium as well.  This year's Mets have a .703 winning percentage at Citi Field.  How impressive is that figure?  It's higher than the .700 mark posted by the 1988 Mets, which is the highest full season winning percentage in club history.

The difference between the .703 winning percentage posted by the Mets at home and their .297 mark on the road is a whopping .406.  If that seems like an unusually large difference, that's because it is.  In fact, no past Mets team has ever come close to that lopsided of a home/road split.


      Year
Home Wins
Home Losses
Road Wins
Road Losses
Home Win %
Road Win %
    Difference
2015
26
11
11
26
.703
.297
.406
1963
34
47
17
64
.420
.210
.210
2000
55
26
39
42
.679
.481
.198
1989
51
30
36
45
.630
.444
.186
2010
47
34
32
49
.580
.395
.185
1967
36
42
25
59
.462
.298
.164
1983
41
41
27
53
.500
.338
.162
1990
52
29
39
42
.642
.481
.161
2005
48
33
35
46
.593
.432
.161
1996
42
39
29
52
.519
.358
.161


It's more than likely that the Mets' winning percentage at home is not sustainable for the rest of the season.  Similarly, the team will probably play better than .297 ball on the road over the next three months.  So let's say the Mets play .500 ball at home for the rest of the season, which would be a huge drop-off from the .700-plus ball they've played at Citi Field so far this year.  That would give the Mets a 48-33 home record at season's end.  Similarly, if they find a cure for their road doldrums and split their remaining 44 games away from Flushing, the Mets would finish 33-48 on the road.

A 48-33 mark is a .593 winning percentage, while a 33-48 record is .407.  That's a difference of .186, which would tie the 1989 Mets for the third-greatest difference between home and road winning percentages.  Should the Mets go 23-21 at home and 21-23 on the road the rest of the way, they would match the 1963 club with a .210 difference (49-32 is a .605 winning percentage, while 32-49 produces a .395 mark).

After losing 18 of their last 21 road games, the Mets finally won a game on the road today, taking the series finale against the Brewers, 2-0.  They'll need more of today's good fortune and less of what they did over their previous 21 road games to avoid becoming known as the Jekyll and Hyde of all Mets teams.

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