Do you ever remember a time when so many road teams won in the post season?

Look at these results:

Wild Card Playoffs

Baltimore beats Texas on the road.

St. Louis beats Atlanta on the road.

NLDS

San Francisco against Cincinnati results in all five games won by the visiting team.

St. Louis against Washington results is 3 of 5 games won by the visiting team.

ALDS

Baltimore vs. New York Yankees results in the road team winning 2 of the 5 games.

Detroit vs. Oakland results in the visiting team winning 1 of 5 games.

League Championship Series (thus far):

Detroit wins the first two games at Yankee Stadium.

St. Louis wins the first game at San Francisco.

This is crazy baseball.  So far, with 25 games played in the post season, the visiting team is winning at a .640 clip.  I really don’t see this as a small sample size either.  We are seeing an interesting trend here.  It’s even worse in the National League where the home team is 2-12 so far, (.166 winning pct).

We watched pennant race baseball and teams clamoring to get that “home field advantage” only see the clubs with the best records fall flat once the elimination games began.  Playing .360 ball hardly seems to be an advantage in my book.  Maybe we’re underestimating the importance of playing these all important series’ at home.

There was immediate criticism of the League Division Series structure that has the team with the worse record opening at home.  Many believed that it severely handicapped the team with the best record by forcing them to win on the road at least one game before returning home for three.  After seeing the results from the 4 Division Series match-ups, it seems that none had an issue winning on the road.  The problems set in once they returned home.

Cincinnati appeared to have sewn up the NLDS against San Francisco after sweeping the first two games at AT&T Park.  We were writing the San Francisco obituary after that 9-0 game two Reds win.  Who would have figured that the Reds couldn’t win a home game after that?  It seemed as if the pressure didn’t get to them until they returned home.  I don’t recall a home team pressing so hard as the Reds in games 4 and 5.  They blew game three with a base running blunder and an error by Scott Rolen.  They should have still been in great shape, needing only to win one of two home games, yet, they were never really in contention after that.

AT&T Park – Advantage Reds and Cardinals

Let’s face it though.  To get this far, you’ve already proven that you can win on the road.  Are teams taking for granted their “home field” advantage?  It seems that some of these clubs are coming out flat at home.  The Giants looked that way last night, and were down 6-0 before they could even get their offense churning.  The crowd was taken out of the game and though they rallied, it wasn’t enough.  The same can be said for their first two home games against Cincinnati.

After the Giants Game one NLCS loss last night, Giant Manager Bruce Bochy put things in perspective.   He remains confident because he knows how his club plays on the road saying, “We’ve shown how resilient we can be… we’ve got to wash this one off and be ready to go tomorrow.”  In other words, “ We’ve got them right where we want ‘em.”  We could see it last night though, the Cardinals came out loose, and the Giants as tight as a drum.

Over on the other coast in the Junior circuit, the Yankees have had difficulty selling out their playoff games.  They have started games with half the seats unoccupied.  This is unprecedented territory for Yankee fans who are always so quick to criticize Dodger fans for their “late arriving” ways.  Some speculated that the cause of this was a strange 5:00 PM start time.  Finally we got to see the true colors of East Coast fans.  Will they show up on a weekday for an early starting game?  Apparently not, because emails were going out a few hours before game time that indicated that the Yankees had plenty of seats to sell.

There has been a noticeable lack of energy at Yankee Stadium for both of these series.  Even when the Yanks rallied for 4 runs in game 1 of the ALCS, there wasn’t the amazing energy that we have seen in New York in seasons past.  Maybe they’re taking the team’s success for granted.  I can’t imagine the Dodgers having difficulty selling out playoffs games, or failing to produce a playoff type energy in such a game at Dodger Stadium.

Yankee Stadium – Advantage Tigers

It’ll be interesting to see how the rest of these series’ play out.  Will the Home Field Disadvantage trend continue?  I guess we’ll find out.