Losing Game 1 or Game 2(regional mythbusting)

[engie]

It's a popular opinion here that losing game 1 or 2 are identical, under the reasoning that the same number of games are played either way. My baseball background left me with a feeling that disagreed with this, although I'd never conclusively researched it. So, I looked at the numbers to either prove or deny it.

Since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1999, there have been 208 regionals played.
- 40 have been won by teams that lost either their first or second game. (19%)
- Of these 40 winners, 25 lost their second game(62.5%). 15 lost their first game(37.5%).
- IF you lose your first regional game, your chance of winning the regional drops to 7%.
- IF you lose your second regional game, your chance of winning the regional drops to 12%.

Clearly, you don't want to lose either of these games. However, just over 3x a year, a team comes out of the loser's bracket to win a regional. Statistically, 2 of those 3 teams will have lost their 2nd game instead of their first. Hence why the 1st game is the most important overall.

 

[CadaverDawg]

Confidence, momentum, and a "we can win this 17er" mentality all go out the window when you lose game 1 to the #3 seed. Not all of the time, but apparently about 93% of the time.

 

[MSDawg34]

So ou should set up to try and best win both.

In my opinion: chances to win
Stratton vs Samford 85% Woodruff vs Samford 65%
Stratton vs Florida St 55% Woodruff vs FSU 40% Graveman vs FSU 45%

Best chance to achieve optimal outcome is Woodruff-Stratton-Graveman in our first 3 games

 

[8dog]

Over 80%of the time the team that goes 2-0 wins it

Now im definitely in favor of kg or bw agaisnt samford

 

[QuaoarsKing]

Definitely not statistically significant.<div>
</div><div>Going 1-1, regardless of how it is, puts you in the Sunday morning game playing for the right to try to beat the 2-0 team twice.</div><div>
</div><div>I imagine the stats appear skewed because 1 seeds are the most likely to come back and win a regional, and they are lot more likely to lose to a 2/3 seed than a 4 seed.</div><div>
</div><div>Also, if your team is so mentally weak that it gets discouraged after losing 1 game in a doubleeliminationtournament, you don't deserve to win. I know Cohen wouldn't put out a team like that, so throw that idea out the window.</div>

 

[Coach34]

match-ups for your pitchers and win both Game 1 and Game 2

 

[MSDawg34]

?

 

[ronpolk]

Personally, I like the way Cohen is pitching this. At least on paper, Samford appears to be the best offensive team in the regional. I think we should match that with our best pitcher. If Graveman is on, he can beat FSU. He has been good this year and I have confidence in him to take on FSU. But in my mind matching up our best pitcher against the best offensive team makes sense.

 

[Bulldog from Birth]

It puts too much weight on the 4-seeds, teams that have nearly zero chance of winning the regional. 4 seeds lose their first game probably 90+% of the time. So all those losses are being into the weighted calculation of "losing your first game is far more likely to prevent you from winning the regional." If you REALLY want to test the hypothesis, you need to look at just the 2/3 matchup. Do those team have any more likelihood of winning the regional if they win 1/lose 1 vs. lose 1/win 1.

BFB

 

[Coach34]

.

 

[birdawg]

Nm

 

[perch0]

I'm with you fellas.

 

[MSDawg34]

before the resident Grizzly-fan deleted my entire post before cooking a steak in an oven...

Pitching Stratton tomorrow is insane. Let Woodruff mow them down and let Chris go against FSU giving us our best chance to win both. And still have our #2 with an extra day of recovery* to go against a depleted FSU pen

 

[missouridawg]

that typewriter to the internet?