Baseball’s Magic Number: 3

Like many, I’ve spent a few decades watching baseball and here’s what I have noticed. The magic number is three. Go look at your favorite teams record this year in the first half and tell me how many more games they would have won under these two conditions. 1. If their opponent would have scored three runs or fewer. Or, 2. Your favorite team would have scored at least three runs. I bet you see at least a 20% increase in wins! For example, let’s look at my beloved Mets. They have lost 14 games in which they scored more than three runs. Had they held their opponents to no more than three runs their record would be 70-30! That’s ten games better than the Detroit Tigers and a .700 average!