1985 Cardinals Home vs. Road

I've already received some great feedback on my article "Whitey Ball" over at THT. In particular Cyril Morong pointed out that the Cardinals in 1985 were 54-27 at home and 47-34 and yet I mentioned that they scored 4.42 runs per game at home and 4.8 runs per game on the road. Of course, this difference can be attributed to the fact that because they won so many games at home, they didn't bat in the 9th inning and therefore scored fewer runs. Although I don't have the actual home/road hitting splits handy I would estimate that the Cards batted some 200 more times in road games.

So, taking their total at bats of 5,467 at allocating 2,625 for home games and 2,842 in road games and then looking at their runs scored at home and road, they scored .136 runs per at bat at home and .137 in road games. Essentially, their production was the same at home and the road given their opportunities.

My point in the article was that they didn't take advantage of their speed more at home than on the road and so I think that still stands.

I also failed to note in the article that in 1985 the Cardinals won the division by three games over the Mets who won 98 games. So, one could say that their stolen bases, by adding 30 runs or 3 wins was in fact the difference. I can't argue with that.