Baseball Road Trips
By Bryan Leonard
It's essential for sports handicappers to understand the significance of home and road play. Teams in all sports usually play significantly better at home than on the road for a variety of reasons. Think about all the inconveniences when you travel on the road: Time spent driving to the airport, parking, luggage, a plane ride through different time zones, red-eye flights means having your sleep interrupted, not knowing your way around an unfamiliar city, practicing in different gyms with lighting and temperature conditions you ' re not used to.
I recall a major league player a few years ago talking about how he simply couldn't sleep on airline flights, which is common with a lot of people. That would be an extra burden on a professional athlete, who makes his living by having his physical gifts in pristine condition. Not having enough sleep could very easily put a pro athlete at 85% physically than 100%, a significant drop when your job requires the hand/eye coordination to smack a 90 MPH fastball into the outfield! One season I noticed that the Baltimore Orioles recent hot streak came when they won 4 of 6 games. Then I took a look at the schedule and found that all those games were at home. Then they went on a losing streak, dropping 4 of 6 games, and I noticed that all those games were on the road, part of a 10-game road trip. That same season the Phillies suddenly got hot and taking a look at the schedule they won 7 of 8 games at home during that run. Then they turned around and lost 7 of 8 games: 5 of those losses were on the road. Make sure you look carefully at a team ' s schedule each day. If a team is hot, see if that correlates with a home stand. If that team is suddenly going on a road trip, perhaps they might be overvalued, a time to back off them or look to go against them.
Perhaps no team better illustrates this than the 2006 KC Royals. While they started 8-15 at home, they were a horrendous 2-20 on the road! The Astros and Brewers that season were also interesting to examine, as they were awesome at home, but completely different teams on the road. Both started 17-9 at home, but 7-14 on the road. On the Brewers road trip out West they promptly lost 5 of 6 at San Diego and LA. They then came home and WON 5 of 6 games over two of the top teams in the NL. The Cubbies big slump started when they went on a 9-game road trip and went 1-8. The Yankees biggest slump this season came when they lost 4 of 5 games in April all on the road. The first place Padres just lost back to back games at LA and Seattle, giving up 19 runs in the two games. They pitch far better at home in their huge park. Yes, the schedule-maker can play a key role in the fortunes of a team, so study your stats, injury reports, and weather conditions each day, and don ' t ignore that schedule.