Chicago Cubs: Home is where the wins are
The Chicago Cubs are near a record pace for home-road win differential. A look at the most imbalanced home-road teams in the expansion era
The Chicago Cubs defeated Milwaukee 4-1 at Wrigley Field Saturday. Nothing new there; the Cubs nearly always win when they play at the Friendly Confines. Their Saturday victory ran their home record this season to 38-18, a .679 winning percentage.
When the Cubs play away from Wrigley, it is a vastly different story. In their road games, the Cubs are just 21-33 this season, .389 winning percentage. That includes a recent 3-6 road trip to San Francisco, Milwaukee and St. Louis.
At home, the Cubs haven’t lost a series since late May. On the road, they haven’t won a series since mid-May. If they continue at their present home and road paces, the Cubs will finish the 2019 season with 25 more victories at Wrigley than on the road, the second largest home-road win differential since the creation of the 162-game schedule in the early 1960s.
In good times and bad, no Cubs team has had such a decided home-road disparity within the lifetimes of most of the team’s fans. To find the last time a Cubs team finished with as many as a 20-game home-road differential you have to go all the way back to 1953 – Ernie Banks’ rookie season. That year, on their way to a 65-89 overall record, the Cubs went 43-34 at home but just 22-55 on the road, a 21-game difference.
The differential is potentially historic for baseball generally, not merely for the Cubs. Since the 1960s, only 26 teams have compiled a home-road differential of as many as 20 games. Here’s an era-by-era look at those teams.
1961-1966
Baseball expanded its schedule from 154 to 162 games when the American League added two teams for the 1961 season. Interestingly, one of those expansion teams, the Los Angeles Angels, was among three teams ringing up those wide home-road differentials that season. On their way to a 70-91 record that was considered surprisingly good, the Angels finished 46-36 at their temporary home, Wrigley Field in Los Angeles. On the road was a vastly different story; the Angels won only 24 of their 79 road games, 22 fewer than at home.
The fourth place Chicago White Sox finished 20 games better at Comiskey Park (53-28) than on the road (33-48), a feat credited to their go-go style and pitching dominance, both of which were more suited to Comiskey’s spacious layout. But the White Sox, and all of the American League, barely sniffed a run at the World Champion New York Yankees, who were virtually unbeatable in the Bronx. The Yanks ran up a 109-53 record in large measure because they went 65-16 at Yankee Stadium. Their 44-37 road record looked average by comparison.
The National League expanded in 1962, and season year later the expansion Houston Colt 45s – not yet known as the Astros — displayed their comfort level with conditions at home. Playing at Colt Stadium while the Astrodome was being constructed, Houston went 44-37. That was well above the team’s talent level; they finished the season in ninth place, 66-96, thanks in large measure to their 22-59 road record. Consider their performance against the Chicago Cubs. In Houston the Colts won seven of nine games, out-scoring the Cubs 24-15. In Chicago, the Cubs won seven of nine, and out–scored the Colts 42-23.
1967-1979
The Astros moved into the Astrodome in time for the 1965 season, and immediately discovered an advantage conveyed by indoor baseball. In 1966 Houston finished only eighth in the National League with a 72-9 record. But the Astros still managed to win 45 of their 81 home games. Their problem was a 27-54 record in games played anywhere that didn’t have a roof.
The 1972 Chicago White Sox made a run at the AL West champion Oakland A’s thanks to their dominance at Comiskey. On their way to an 87-67 overall record – five and one-half games behind the A’s – the Sox won 55 of their 78 home games, seven more than the A’s. But the Sox, too, couldn’t handle life on the road, where they went just 32-44.
Only three teams have won a World Series with as much as a 20-game home-road imbalance. The 1961 Yankees did it, and so did the Big Red Machine in 1975. That season the Reds intimidated visitors to Riverfront Stadium, going 64-17. They didn’t lose a home game until April 20, went 10-3 at home in May, 14-5 in June, 14-3 in July, 11-2 in August and 9-3 in September. At 44-37, they weren’t bad on the road, either.
Between 1977 and 1978, four teams compiled 20-game home-road disparities. The Pirates did it both seasons, the Cardinals finished with a 21-game differential in 1977, and the 1978 Astros showed that franchise hadn’t lost its home field touch. On their way to an overall 74-88 record, the Astros finished 50-31 at home but just 24-57 on the road.
The 1980s
The 1982 Kansas City Royals challenged the California Angels for supremacy in the AL West on the strength of dominance of their home field, which at that time was still known as Royals Stadium. The Royals went 56-25 at home, four games better than California’s home record. The Angels prevailed by three games because they managed to play .500 ball on the road, 41-40. Away from Kansas City, the Royals collapsed, winning just 34 of their 81 starts.
In the 1980s, perhaps no team dominated its home field as thoroughly as the Minnesota Twins dominated opponents at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. That most famously included winning the 1987 World Series by sweeping post-season play at home.
The Twins were every bit as home-oriented during the regular season, with a 56-25 record that was 27 games better than the team’s 29-52 road record. That’s a record. It was the second time in three seasons that the Twins had dominated at the Metrodome. On their way to a 77-85 record in 1985, the Twins went 49-35 at home but just 28-50 on the road.
The 1987 Boston Red Sox failed to defend their American League pennant, and it was entirely due to the team’s inability to win on the road. At Fenway Park, the Red Sox dominated opponents to the tune of a 50-30 record. Away from Fenway, they managed only a 28-54 record.
During the final decade of the 20th Century, only two teams compiled large home-road disparities. Both did so early in the decade.
The 1990 Houston Astros reprised the Astrodome’s reputation for home cooking. Season-long they were below average, with only a 75-87 record. Under the Dome however, the Astros played championship ball, winning 49 of their 81 starts, a .604 winning percentage.
The problem, obviously, was Houston’s wanderings. Away from home the Astros went 26-55, losing seven of nine road games to the eventual World Series winning Reds. At home the Astros out-scored opponents by 26 runs; away from home opponents out-scored them by 110 runs.
The 1991 Cardinals finished 14 games behind the NL East champion Pirates, and that entire 14 game difference could be found in performance on the road. Both teams went 52-32 in their home parks, but while the Pirates played 46-32 ball on the road the Cardinals stumbled to a 32-46 road record. That included losing six of nine to the Pirates in Pittsburgh.
Despite being in second place in their division during all of August and September, the Cardinals compiled an 8-21 road record during the season’s final two months. For that same period at home, they were 23-10.
2000-2010
With a home base situated a mile high, the Colorado Rockies have since their inception in 1993 wrestled with a home-road imbalance. That was certainly the case in 2002.
The Rockies finished only 73-89 that season, a record that was certainly marred by the team’s inability to perform away from Coors Field. Colorado played 47-34 ball at home, but managed only 26 wins against 55 losses elsewhere.
In 2006, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Milwaukee Brewers both finished 23 games better at home than on the road. Milwaukee’s 27-54 road record sabotaged what otherwise might have been a contending season that included a 48-33 record at home. Under Joe Maddon, the 2006 Devil Rays weren’t quite ready to challenge the Yankees and Red Sox for supremacy in the AL East; that was yet a couple of seasons in the future. Again, the problem lay in the team’s ineptitude playing out of a suitcase. The Devil Rays finished 61-101 thanks to a 20-61 record on the road. At home they were beginning to look presentable, playing 41-40 ball.
According to the record book, the Detroit Tigers were a .500 team in 2010. They were actually anything but. At Comerica Park, the Tigers were a dominant 52-29. On the road, their record was exactly the opposite, just 29-52.
The Pittsburgh Pirates were an even bigger road pushover in 2010, winning just 17 times against 64 road losses. For that, the Pirates were sentenced to sixth place in the NL Central. The odd thing is that at PNC Park, those Pirates were a legitimate challenge, playing 40-41 ball.
2011-Present
Since 2011, three teams have compiled extreme home-road differentials, and they represent the three franchises with the most persistent reputations for home-road differential.
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In 2014, the Colorado Rockies went 66-96 because they were consistently unable to transfer any of their Coors Field magic to a road site. Those Rockies won just 21 times in their 81 road starts, 24 fewer victories than the 45 they amassed at Coors.
The 2015 Houston Astros completed the franchise’s rebuilding program by playing in – and winning — the AL wild card game against the Yankees in New York. The surprise was that the Astros won a road game, something that had hamstrung them all season. In compiling their 86-76 record, the Astros had been a daunting 53-28 at Minute Maid Park but only 33-48 away from home.
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In 2017 the Minnesota Twins had qualified for post-season play as a wild card team. They were expected to contend for that honor again n 2018, but failed due to their consistent inability to win away from Target Field. The Twins won just 29 of their 52 road games, 20 fewer than they won at home and 15 fewer than they had won on the road just one season earlier.