The Yankees are off to one of the worst starts in franchise history. For only the 17th time since 1901, the Bronx Bombers have one win or less in the season’s first five games, a period over which the team has also compiled its 11th worst run differential. Does the slow start seal the Yankees’ fate? Not according to history.
In the 16 previous seasons that began 0-5 or 1-4, the Yankees rebounded to win at least 55% of all games in seven. Included among those are two championships seasons, 1978 and 1998, the latter being arguably the best in franchise history. The first five games of 2015 may have been ugly, but the Yankees have proven in the past that they can dust themselves off after an early stumble.
Slow Start Snapshot: How Yankees Have Fared When Stumbling in the First Five Games
Source: proprietary database populated with information from baseball-reference.com
Although Yankee fans shouldn’t panic over five games, a longer-term view of the team’s struggles might be cause for concern. As noted above, the Bronx Bombers have been outscored by 12 runs, and at no point have they enjoyed a positive run differential. In fact, the last time the Yankees had cumulatively scored more runs than their opponents was April 18 of last year, a streak of 145 games.
Yankees’ Cumulative Run Differential Streaks, 1901 to 2015
Note: Represents consecutive days with a run differential that is either positive (greater than zero on y axis) or 0/negative (less than zero on y-axis).
Source: proprietary database populated with information from baseball-reference.com
The last time the Yankees went longer without posting a positive run differential was 1991, when after an Opening Day loss, time spent in the red was extended to 156 straight games. Should this year’s team remain in negative territory throughout April, they’d not only surpass that mark of futility, but also harken back all the way to the 1913 team that finished off a franchise high 383 consecutive games without posting a run advantage.
Games with Cumulative Negative Run Differential
Note: Represents games in a season after which the team had a cumulative negative run differential.
Source: proprietary database populated with information from baseball-reference.com
Run differential streaks can be somewhat trivial because they are skewed by small sample sizes in the early part of the season. However, counting total games with a negative run differential paints an even more worrisome picture. Since 2013, the Yankees have ended 242 games with fewer runs scored in the current season than they had allowed. That’s nearly 75% of all games during the span, but, even more telling, it nearly equals the 262 instances between 1996 and 2012 combined.
What makes the Yankees’ poor start worthy of concern isn’t that the first five games have been played so poorly, but that they resemble the team’s struggles over the past two years. Had the Yankees made significant upgrades after the difficult 2014 campaign, they’d deserve a much greater benefit of the doubt in 2015. However, improvements weren’t made during the offseason, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that none have been evident on the field. As Yogi Berra would say, “It ain’t over till it’s over,” but so far, “it’s like deja-vu, all over again.”
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