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The story
A thread titled “Giants’ Comeback Pennant Confirmed” popped up on 5ch’s live-commentary board — but at this point, the Tigers’ magic number for the pennant was still lit and hadn’t gone out. With the Tigers holding four more regular-season games remaining than the Giants, the thread split over how to properly calculate the real standings gap and how the head-to-head matchups would play out. Talk also heated up over MVP candidates, centered on Triple-Crown-paced Sato Teruaki and the continued strong pitching of Raidel Martinez.
What people said
MVP should be Satoteru (nickname for slugger Sato Teruaki)
Not if they miss the pennant — even winning the Triple Crown wouldn't make it a lock
In that case it's gotta be Raidel (Martinez)
Someone who doesn't get how magic numbers work
So what, lol
Because the Tigers have 4 more games left
all they gotta do is beat the Dragons
Tigers are still favored, but whether they can beat the Carp is the whole key
If you're picking one Giant, it's Raidel
Come on, MVP's gotta be Satoteru
he's on Triple Crown pace
Giants: 15 games left, need to win out — .595 pace
The question is whether the Tigers' 4 extra games left end up a strength or a weakness
It's 1 head-to-head game, not 2
The real game-back gap is the difference in games remaining divided by 2, so it's still a 2.5-game gap
Tigers are still way out in front
It applies when you'd still clinch by winning out against everyone else, even if the target team wins all of theirs
The magic number is how many more wins you need even if you lose every remaining head-to-head with the target team
That's why dropping head-to-head games against the target team never makes the magic number disappear
It's a number for the team with the magic number: assuming you lose every head-to-head with the target team, how many wins do you still need from everyone else
So conversely, winning a head-to-head game knocks it down by 2 or more
Just keep him on, right?
Back-to-back titles next year too, with Hashigami still as acting manager!
I'm a fan of the young guys, so I want Abe back
Abe's contract runs out at the end of this season anyway, so there's no manager for the acting guy to hand back to
But when it goes down like that, keeping the same guy on usually ends badly, doesn't it
If anything, the Tigers (derisive 2ch nickname: chin-kasu) are actually under .500 in September, so in real terms the Giants are up half a game — that's a way more sound way to calculate it than just assuming a full sweep of your extra games
Same here
Just looking at this month the Tigers have cooled off, and there are makeup doubleheaders coming up, so having more games left doesn't automatically mean an advantage
Also I recall it being the same deal with 'V yanen' (a Kansai-dialect meme from last year's title race) — 'the Tigers have more games left…' and so on
And the opponents are the Dragons, Carp, and DeNA
Isn't that basically a cakewalk?
For some reason the Tigers actually have a lower win rate at Koshien, their own home park
Not only is their Koshien win rate weirdly lower, they've also struggled against the Carp this year
ERA: 1st Murakami (Tigers), 2nd Takahashi (Tigers)
Wins: 1st Takahashi (Tigers), 2nd Murakami (Tigers)
■ Central League Batter Rankings
Batting average: 1st Sato (Tigers), 2nd Morishita (Tigers)
RBIs: 1st Sato (Tigers), 3rd Morishita (Tigers)
Home runs: 1st Sato (Tigers), 2nd Morishita (Tigers)
Seriously, if they're not running away with it with stats like that, it's on the manager
Sounds like there's some kind of debuff in effect (lol)
How are they not running away with the pennant with numbers like this?
Not counting today, that's 7 straight losses to the Tigers, so no, that's not happening
and DeNA's the strongest of the six teams right now
The Giants are actually pretty good against the BayStars
That's just from padding the record against DeNA early in the season, right?
Feels like in recent years they've often ended up with a losing record against DeNA late in the season
well, they'll probably manage to win tomorrow at least
But the Tigers also have more games left against the BayStars
I mean, if we're going there, the Giants are 7-2 in September while the Tigers are 2-5, you know?
Background and Key Points of This Debate
In Japanese pro baseball, a team’s “magic number” is the count of wins still needed against any opponent — even assuming a complete sweep of losses in the remaining head-to-head games against the chasing team — to clinch the pennant; winning a head-to-head game changes how fast that number falls. That’s why opinions split over whether it’s valid to simply divide the four-game gap in games remaining by two to convert it into a standings gap. Sato Teruaki currently leads the league in batting average, RBIs, and home runs, putting a Triple Crown within reach, but with the team not running away with the pennant despite those numbers, some posters pointed fingers at the manager’s handling of the club. There’s also the backdrop that former manager Abe’s contract runs only through this season with no successor named yet, which feeds into the ongoing debate over the acting-manager setup.
※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “[Hooray] Giants’ Comeback Pennant Confirmed lmaooo.”
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