Sparklines

Well, the descent back to earth of the Washington Nationals continues. On July 4th they stood at 50-32 with a 22-7 record in one-run games. At that time they had scored 337 runs and given up 338 which means their pythagorean winning percentage was .499 equating to 41 wins.

Today they are 56-49 and five games behind the Braves having gone 6-17 since then. Their one-run winning percentage has regressed to the mean to the point where they now stand at 24-18.

Graphically, this fall from grace can be depicted using a device called a Sparkline. Simply put, a sparkline is a graphic that can be displayed inside a paragraph to more clearly explain what are otherwise simply numbers.

Here is the sparkline for the Nats for the entire season. Upward bars are wins, downward bars are losses and red bars indicate a run differential of +/-1. The right end of the line clearly shows how the Nats have begun to falter in one-run contests.



Look for more about sparklines in upcoming articles at The Hardball Times.