One Is the Loneliest Number

When I tuned in to the game last night -- I love my XM Radio -- the White Sox were losing 4-1, and I thought, "Not another game where we lose because we can't score more than one run." That made me wonder what the team's record is this year when scoring only one run in a game. I knew it wouldn't be good because you'd have to shut out the other team to win, and that doesn't happen all that often, let alone when you've scored only once.

Today, I just happened to stumble on the answer in Baseball-Reference.com. The Stat of the Day column says that the Sox are 0-10 in games when they score one run, the same record as the Royals and the Astros. Pretty bad, but it could be worse. The Mets are 0-14, the A's are 0-15, and the Dodgers, while they have a better winning percentage in those games, are 1-18. The Angels, by contrast, are in the process of doing something historic -- at 3-2, they have a winning record in such games. Only the 1906 Cubs and the 1969 Mets have finished an entire season with a winning records when playing Uno; only the 1910 Reds and the 1960 Braves have even finished .500 when pushing only one man across the plate. Keep an eye on the Halos to see if they can pull this off.

As for the Sox, the simple solution to their problem is score more runs.