Statheads Knew the Rays Were Going to Comeback

The Rays were about to lose a critical series. Tampa had been outscored 15-1 by Toronto over the past 10 innings and had Boston creeping up behind them in the standings. It would take a miraculous comeback to salvage the series – and Tampa did it, erasing a 7-run deficit!

Those who like to play MLB betting systems had faith in such a comeback. They understood that Tampa was in a good spot to win this game. What were they looking at? I’ll show you.

The Rays kicked off a 3-game weekend set with the Jays by winning 3-1 on Friday and were then running away with Saturday’s game – up 9-3 after 7 innings.

The superior Rays squad was likely beginning to think about Sunday’s game and a chance at the sweep when they had the tables turned on them sharply. Toronto notched 2 in the 8th and 4 in the 9th to send the game into extras tied 9-9.

A Teoscar Hernandez walk-off shot in the 12th sealed the victory for Toronto and dealt the Rays their most crushing loss of the season.

The Blue Jays seemed to carry their momentum from this comeback into Sunday’s finale. Toronto scored 2 in the 2nd, 2 in the 3rd, and 4 in the 5th to take an 8-1 lead. Going back to the 8th inning of Saturday’s game, Toronto had scored 15 of the past 16 runs in the series. The situation was bleak for Tampa.

Rays’ shortstop Willy Adames popped out to begin the 6th inning. At this moment, ESPN had the Blue Jays win probability at 99.1%.

The Rays had just a 0.9% chance of winning this baseball game … and yet bettors still believed. Why? It has to do with the turnaround.

The Rays blew a 7-run lead on Saturday. Logic would say this is detrimental for a team – a crushing blow to morale. The statistics say that good teams can handle a loss like this and actually regain focus because of it.

Since Killersports has MLB data, 2004, highly-favored teams are excellent bets following a losing game in which they blew a lead of 7 or more.

I define highly-favored as any team with a line of -150 or greater. Here are the numbers for those teams since 2004. RPG is runs scored per game. ROI is return on investment – profit expressed as a percentage of the total amount wagered.

Record	Profit	ROI	RPG
13-2	$910	35.7%	7.2

13-2. Although 15 games is a small sample, this system has not just been squeaking by. It has been extremely profitable.

While I’m sure Rays’ bettors were nervous when Tampa fell down by 7 runs, history suggests Tampa would have a good offensive game.

Since 2010, teams that are highly-favored have scored an average of 5.04 runs per game. These particular favorites in the system are plating over 7 runs per game – all because they blew a large lead their last time out.

The Rays surpassed 7 runs on Sunday, eventually scoring 10 to take the rubber match 10-9.

As a final note: teams that are not highly favored (favorite of -149 or less or an underdog) are not good bets in this scenario. They have a 22-33 record with nearly -$1,000 in losses since the beginning of 2004.

The Blue Jays defied the trend by winning Monday after blowing their 7-run lead to the Rays on Sunday. This is the 3rd win in a row for non-highly-favored teams in this spot – all occurring this season. Maybe the tides are shifting?