And then there were 3 ...
Only 3 games left and the Boston is being Brave, while Atlanta is show Red, while both teams hold on by their figure nails trying to limp into the playoffs.
Take a leap below the fold, before you take an actual leap.
Today’s numbers are better than you would expect. This has to do with Boston playing Baltimore and Tampa Bay playing New York. My model does not account for New York possible resting people, or Baltimore thriving in the role of spoiler. By the numbers you would expect Boston to win 54.5 % of the time at Baltimore and Tampa Bay to win 49.4% of the time when hosting the Yankees.
Warning – statistics ahead …
This means the Maximum Likelihood Estimator (MLE) for a small sample of discrete outcomes has a wide variance. The MLE of wins for Boston is 2, while for Tampa Bay its 1. Because of this we have a confidence level of +- 18 % for these outcomes … meaning Boston’s chances are theoretically as low as 52%.
Here is today’s estimate …
Boston 70.3 to win, 17.9 to tie.
Tampa Bay is 11.8 to win, 17.9 to tie.
The Angels have a negligible chance to force a tie.
Having the one game lead is huge at this point …
For example, Here are the NL results, with Atlanta with the one game lead, but St. Louis is playing Houston while Atlanta is playing Phily. You still expect both Atlanta and Houston to win 1 of 3. That means St. Louis needs to win 2 to tie and 3 to have a chance of winning … the NL numbers.
Atlanta 59.6 to win
St. Louis 14.6 to win
Tie 26.7
And the Royals have a better than 50% chance of going 72-90.