Monday, June 21, 2010
Interleague play: The empire strikes back
Posted by Steve TrederWe've been keeping a close eye on this year's interleague play results ever since the National League grabbed a slight edge in the first weekend's round, something quite at odds with the results over the past several seasons, which have been dominated by the AL.
As recently as less than a week ago, the NL still held a slight lead in 2010, at 45 wins to 43. But the play for the rest of this past week has deeply buried that circumstance: since then, the American League has trounced the National, 49-31, putting the overall results for this season at 92-76 in favor of the AL. This is a winning percentage of .548, which, interestingly enough, is precisely equal to the margin by which the American League triumphed in interleague play in 2009.
AL teams have outscored their NL counterparts 792-733, which yields a Pythagorean record of 90-78, suggesting that there's nothing flukey about these win-loss results.
This year's interleague play schedule isn't quite completed. But as of now, it's looking as though the NL's modest early lead was the fluke, and that the American League is well on its way to achieving its sixth consecutive season of interleague superiority.
Steve Treder can often be found spending way too much time talking baseball at Baseball Primer. He welcomes your questions and comments via e-mail.
The NL is making a respectable showing of it so far this week.