We're talkin' baseball

Scaduto is clearly using today's strip and his knowledge of my love of baseball to suck up to me. When the O's are winning, I have that same idiotic expression as the guy in the top panel. And oh, I do know this pain--the team's out on a long road trip, they do well, you're excited, and you go out and watch them lose. It's painful. But...really, it's not a given that it'll happen every time.

(This reminds me of last season. After the All-Star break, the O's went on a long road trip. They had been tearing it up in the first half, but were starting to fall. Even so, spirits were high. Palmeiro had just had his 3000th hit. Javy Lopez was coming back off the DL. The O's return to Camden Yards. All is exciting. We were only 3.5 back! And...they lose. They win the next night, but lose the next 8. The season goes straight to pot. It totally sucked. We wound up 21 games behind.)

(...Um, yeah, sorry. This is about a comic strip, not baseball.)

The headline "Win 14 out of 16 on road" confuses me. There's no way that the Birdlegs went on a 16-game road trip. The longest road trips are usually around 9 or 10 games, and those are considered pretty darn long. Maybe they had a brief homestand in the middle? The top caption seems to imply this happens a lot, so I'll just assume it's early in the season and they've only had 16 road games, total. Still...odd. Most teams do better at home than on the road.

I noticed that the submitter is from New York, so thought I'd take a gander at the Mets' and Yankees' records. The Mets are 38-26 away, 43-23 at home. Clearly this doesn't apply to them. The Yankees are 38-29 away, 39-23 home. Hmm, a bit closer here, but even so, they still have a better home record than away. Maybe the submitter is complaining about a minor league team?

And the score is 19-0. That smarts.

Detail he got right: Visiting team is listed on top on the scoreboard; home team on bottom. Correct! Good job!

Detail he got wrong: The scoreboard goes to 14 innings? Dang! Most nowadays are electronic, but even the older ones only go to 10 or 11 innings, because honestly, how often do you run into a 14-inning game?

Yes, I have put too much thought into this. Once you get me started on baseball, I won't shut up.