First Half In Review Plus A Short Week, A Look at Below the Box Score’s First Half of the MLB Season

With the All-Star Game behind us, and each team having played only one series this week, there’s not a whole lot to report in Below the Box Score this week, since everything notable was achieved by two teams this week. So first, we’ll just do a quick overview of the first half of the season:

Here’s some trivia for you from Below the Box Score’s first half:

• Only the Brewers and the Phillies have not had an ejection so far this year. The Cardinals, Indians, Mariners and Yankees only have one ejection.
• The Blue Jays (14) and Pirates (10) are the only teams with double digit ejections this season.
• The Indians are the only team to draw fewer than 10,000 fans this season, with the season low being 8,766 on May 4th.
• The Giants have not had fewer than 41,000 fans at a home game this season.
• The Dodgers and Braves have drawn more than 50,000 fans to a game this season.
• The Athletics, Indians, and Rays average fewer than 20,000 fans a game this season.
• The Cardinals, Dodgers, and Giants average greater than 40,000 fans a game this season.
• The shortest game of the season was 2:07, between the Dodgers and D-backs on May 1st. The Dodgers won 1-0.
• The longest game of the season was 6:13, between the Blue Jays and the Indians on July 1st. The Indians won 2-1 in 18 innings.
• The Athletics, Blue Jays, Phillies, Rangers, and Royals all average games shorter than three hours. The Royals lead the league at 2:56.
• The Diamondbacks, Pirates, and Red Sox all average games longer than 3:10. The Red Sox lead the league at 3:14.
• The longest Rangers game of the season was 3:58. This is the quickest “longest game” for an MLB team this season.
• The shortest Orioles game of the season was 2:30. This is the longest “quickest game” for an MLB team this season.
• Temperatures for all games this season have ranged from 31 (Detroit vs Yankees, April 9th) to 101 (Diamondbacks vs Giants, May 13th).
• The Dodgers have not played a game with a temperature lower than 58 degrees.
• The Rays have not played a game with a temperature above 90 degrees.
• The Diamondbacks are the only team with an average game temperature of > 80 degrees (81.1 degrees) on the full season (including away games).
• The Athletics have an average temperature on the season of 66.9 degrees, barely edging out their cross-bay rivals, the Giants, who average 67.
• Every team has played an outdoor game with winds calmer than 3 MPH and stronger than 17 MPH.
• The Giants have had the windiest season, average 11.1 MPH winds at their games, both home and away.
• There have been two games with 25 MPH winds, the strongest of the year: Giants vs Brewers on June 13th and Red Sox vs Astros on May 15th.

Now a quick look at this week:

Five ejections this week in three incidents, with both Bay Area teams having double ejections. This continues to narrow the gap between AL and NL to a difference of only seven, 59-52.

Attendance once again sees the Rays at the bottom, being the only team averaging sub 20,000 this week, while the Yankees were at the top, averaging over 46,200 for their series against the Red Sox.  The Cardinals and Cubs were the other two to average above 40,000 in the shortened week.

The Cubs and Rangers had the shortest matchup of the week at 2:17, with only the Braves, Rockies, D-backs, and Dodgers not playing a game shorter than three hours in their three game series this week. The longest game of the week was Sunday’s 18-inning Nationals vs Pirates, which came in 12 minutes shy of six hours.

Weather was fairly consistent, with temps staying within a 10 degree range for every series. The same can be said for the winds, with only two series having >15 MPH winds in a game.

As always, we have included the miscellany and below that the raw data to look at yourself. Note there are three tables, the top being all games, the second home games, and the last being away games. Enjoy!

Attendance:

Lowest attendance last week: Rays (vs Orioles), Sunday, July 17th. 16,161

Highest-(Lowest attendance) last week: Yankees (vs Red Sox), Sunday, July 17th. 42,884

Highest attendance last week: Yankees (vs Red Sox), Saturday, July 16th. 48,329

Lowest-(Highest attendance) last week: Rays (vs Orioles), Saturday, July 16th. 18,638

Game time:

Longest game last week: Nationals (vs Pirates), Sunday, July 17th. 5:48 (2-1 Pirates, 18 innings)

Shortest game last week: Cubs (vs Rangers), Sunday, July 17th. 2:17 (4-1 Rangers)

Longest average game for the week: Diamondbacks/Dodgers, 3:52 average over 3 games.

Quickest average game for the week: Angels/White Sox, 2:33 average over 3 games.

Weather:

Warmest game last week: Cardinals (vs Marlins), 93 degrees, Sunday, July 17th.

Coldest game last week: Athletics (vs Blue Jays), 63 degrees, Friday, July 15th.

Warmest average for the week: Cardinals/Marlins, 87.7 degrees over 3 games.

Coldest average for the week: Athletics/Blue Jays, 65.7 degrees over 3 games.

Windiest game last week: Cubs vs Rangers, 18 mph, Sunday, July 17th.

Windiest week: Cubs/Rangers/Indians/Twins, 12.7 MPH over 3 games.

Ejections:

Total ejections last week: 5 (111 total this season)

Ejections by league: AL 2, NL 3.  (Season: AL 59, NL 52)

Raw data:

All games

Home games

Away games