Baltimore and Pythagoras.

Mirrors does not begin to describe what Baltimore did this season.  Maybe Pythagoras does.

Saturday, January 21, 2012
Pythagorean Variable Exponent AL/NL 1903-2010 by Year.

This link takes you to the Baseball Reference American Conference wild card detailed standings.  Below is a list of the teams that contended for the tournament sorted by wins.  There is also the number of wins estimated by the baseball Pythagorean formula based on runs scored minus runs allowed per game.

American W PythW Dif
New York95 95 0
Oakland 94 92 2
Texas 93 91 2
Baltimore 93 82 11
Tampa 90 95 -5
Angels 89 88 1
Detroit 88 87 1
Chicago 85 88 -3

Only two teams underachieved or had bad luck if you prefer: Tampa and Chicago.  Baltimore over achieved (or was very lucky) in the extreme at plus eleven.  From 1956 through 2003 no team was plus double figures, i.e., ten or more.  Here are recent teams plus ten or more:

2004 Yankees 101 - 89 = 12
2008 Angels 100 - 88 = 12
2009 Seattle 85 - 75 = 10.

Baltimore defeated Texas in the do or die wild card play in game, then took the Yankees to the brink of elimination in the opening series.  Amazingly Baltimore won two of three games in which Yankee ace CC Sabathia did not start; CC stared the first and last.  Here are Baltimore's runs in the five games:

2 lost
3 won
2 lost in 12 innings
2 won in 13 innings
1 lost.

The Yankees drew attention by scoring only 16 but Baltimore scored just ten in the five games.  Since Baltimore never shut out the Yankees, arithmetic was against the Orioles.