Low Variance, High Esoterica

It's been pointed out that in the NLCS, neither team scored more than five runs for the first time in a while. But I've noticed that this is not an isolated phenomenon. If we make the standard 10 runs for two teams rather than five runs for one team, the trend persists throughout the almost all playoff series. In fact, 20 of this year's 26 playoff games have featured 10 or fewer runs, including all 11 LCS games! I don't have data for 2005, yet, but in 2004, the average game featured 9.6 runs, so this is like two regular season days of games being way below average.

But wait, there's more!

What makes this note transcend to the next level of esoterica is that, despite all the low scoring games, there have been no shutouts! The closest regular season couple of days like this since 1993--when offense spiked above nine runs a game--was on August 5 and 6, 1993, when 10 or fewer runs were scored in 22 of 28 games, with nary a shutout.

With the pitching matchups scheduled for the Big One, we just may ascend further into rarified esoterica.

Extra Esoterica
The "best" pair of days like this since 1960 (min. 26 games) was August 19 and 20, 1977, when 25 of 28 games fit these criteria.