106

You don't want to read about it, and we don't want to write about it, so let's just skip over the lost weekend in Tampa. (If you're really a glutton for punishment, scroll down to the prior post, which details Friday's heartbreaking loss. It was written before we knew that there would be two more wasted pitching efforts and our spirit was broken.) Instead, let's look ahead to what should be a respite in the schedule. Lots of home games and our first crack at Kansas City this season.

As noted in an earlier post, the schedulemakers have been unkind to the White Sox so far this year. They've played the fewest home games by far of any team in the league -- 22. The next lowest total is 26, and Tampa Bay has already played an even dozen more games at The Trop (34) than the Sox have played at The Cell.

Does that matter you ask? Well, John Thorn and Pete Palmer reported in their classic tome, The Hidden Game of Baseball, that historically home teams have consistently posted a .540 winning percentage. For the math challenged among you, that means the visitors have only a .460 percentage, or a difference of .080. So the answer is yes, it matters generally.

But what about the White Sox? Well, this season they've won at a .591 clip at home, but only a .500 pace on the road. The difference for the Sox, therefore, is an even greater than league average .091. Hopefully, playing 26 of the next 32 games in Chicago (we know, three of them are at Wrigley, but our guys still get to sleep in their own beds and drive to the games) will help.

What should undoubtedly help is playing Kansas City. Only Seattle has a worse record in the American League. The fact that the Sox are still in first in the division without having played any games against the Royals is encouraging. In fact, using the Bill James Log5 method of estimating one-game winning percentages tells us that the Sox have somewhere between a 67% and 70% chance of winning tonight's game at The Cell against the Royals. (The 67% number was calculated using the teams' overall records and adding a standard additional percentage for the home team; the 70% number used the Sox's home record and the Royals' road record.) Warning: This formula predicted a 98% chance of a Sox victory over the Royals a couple of years ago at a point when the Sox were fabulous at home and KC was horrendous on the road, so, of course, the Sox lost -- as reader Mike Sehr was quick to point out the next day. Let's hope the Royals won't beat the odds this time. Go Sox!