On Aug. 30, the Tampa Bay Rays trailed the San Diego Padres by two runs with two outs in the ninth when Jonny DeLuca lifted a fly ball down the left-field line that looked like the final out of the game. Padres left fielder Samad Taylor ran it down at the short fence near the foul pole and had the ball in his glove − but then he slammed into the wall. The ball came loose, tumbling over the wall. What would be a routine out anywhere else became a two-run home run off Mason Miller, one of two the closer has given up this year.
Tampa Bay won it in the 11th on a bases-loaded single from Jorge Mateo. Nobody remembers that game as anything more than a win, and that's the point. The Rays have had a lot of luck this season, but the bottom line is they
have been piling up wins this year, a lot of them. In fact, they have been collecting more than their own numbers can explain.
Tampa Bay was 90-59 heading into Tuesday night's games, but its run differential projects to an 82-67 team, an 8-win gap that's the largest of any team in this year's playoff field. Looking at all of baseball, no team has been unluckier than the Detroit Tigers, sitting 71-79 despite outscoring its opponents by 71 runs this year.
This isn't some exotic advanced analytics. It's the Pythagorean win expectation, a decades-old formula that turns runs scored and allowed into the record that gap should produce. When a team beats its own number, there's usually some luck involved.
With less than two weeks left in the regular season, this is a glimpse of who is riding their luck into October. The playoffs are one close game after another, the exact conditions that built these gaps all summer. Whatever has been carrying a team, good or bad, is about to get tested for real.
No team headed for October has caught more breaks than the Rays. Here's where the rest of the postseason contenders fall on the spectrum of luck:
Getting all the breaks
Houston is the closest thing to the Rays in the field. The Astros are 75-75, leading the American League West, but their run differential projects them to be 69-81. That's a six-win overperformance.
The Phillies aren't that far off, either. At 83-67, Philadelphia is four wins ahead of its 79-71 projected record. San Diego is also getting the breaks. The Padres have an 82-68 record against a projected 78-72 record, up four wins.
Cleveland (76-75) has had a smaller version of the same thing, just two wins above their projected 74-77, but that's enough to matter in a division race that sees them trailing just 1½ games heading into Tuesday night's games. It helps the Guardians that the White Sox are on the other side of this equation.
Taking their lumps
On the other side of the spectrum, the Cubs have gotten the least out of their season relative to how they have actually played. Chicago's 84-67, but its run differential projects to a 90-61 record. That's a six-win shortfall, the largest of any potential playoff team.
New York and Boston are not far off with a four-win deficit from their projected records. The Yankees are 87-63 instead of the 91-59 projected, while the Red Sox are 82-68 against 86-64.
Even the best teams in the game are dealing with some bad luck. Los Angeles and Milwaukee are each down three, the Dodgers 91-59 against a projected 94-56, while the Brewers have the best record in the sport at 93-57, but they are projected an even more dominant 96-54. So the best teams in the game are not getting the bounces − yet.
Then there's Cleveland's own division rival: the White Sox lead the AL Central at 77-73 but project to 79-71. Those two wins would be handy in such a close race.
The field of contenders splits pretty close to the middle. It's not quality, some of the best teams in baseball are on the wrong side of this. That's worth remembering when the playoffs start, when the Rays have to prove their season wasn't built on lucky bounces and the Cubs and Dodgers can show they are even better than their records. Close games are the norm in October and these teams are about to see how lucky they really are or are not.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Who is MLB's luckiest playoff team? Where all the contenders sit
