AL domination in interleague play?

[obobo55]

Perhaps this was discussed already back when the interleague games had just finished, but looking at the standings I had some thoughts.

 

Overall the AL beat the NL 137 to 115.

 

AL East was even overall

AL Central was +6

AL West was +16

 

NL East was -5

NL Central was -7

NL West was -10

 

What I found interesting is the top 3 AL teams went 40-14. Boston, Detroit, and Anaheim were just truly dominant. take out those games and the matchup between the leagues swings to the NL's favor 101-97. Obviously you can't do that, but it shows that the leagues are fairly even outside of those 3 clubs. Personally I will look at our 2-1 series win over the Tigers on the road and smile.

 

The other interesting thing I noticed is that the Cubs only played 12 interleague games (with 6 against the ChiSox). Every other NL team played at least 15, with Colorado, Florida & Washington playing 18. That seems strange to me, not that it matters but wouldn't you think they would try to get the Cubs into more different cities as they draw well wherever they play?

 

Also interesting is how much a factor those games have had on the divisional races. Factoring out the interleague games:

 

Boston's lead on NYY drops from 8 to 6.

Detroit goes from leading by 1 to trailing by 4 to the Indians.

The Angels drop behind Seattle, again going from a 1 game advantage to behind by 4.

 

The Mets lose their 3.5 lead on the Braves and trail by .5

The Crews current 2.5 lead grows to 4.

The tie between the Padres/Dodgers becomes a 1 game LA lead.

 

Who knows what would have happened if they didn't have Interleague games? Perhaps the teams were just playing that well at the time and the results would be the same, but it is interesting that those few selected games--designed just to drive attendance--could have that big an effect on every race.

 

Oh yeah, BTW, the Brewers still have the best record in the National League!