Considering the ballparks where this year’s World Series is being played, it’s not surprising that multiple balls are flying out of the yard each game. By regular-season rates, the Yankees and Phillies are right on pace for their expected number of circuit clouts this series and could set a World Series record.

Although more sophisticated park factors normalize home-run rates by making them team-independent, such normalization isn’t necessary when estimating how many home runs the particular World Series teams might hit. Instead, let’s simply look at the number of home runs per game in the regular season, in which Yankee Stadium and Citizens Bank Ballpark led their respective leagues. We’ll then extrapolate how many home runs the series might have, based on the number of games played at each park (e.g., for a six-game series, three at Yankee Stadium and three at Citizens Bank):

With 12 home runs between them in the four games played thus far, the Yankees and Phillies are one ahead of their regular-season rate and are now within striking distance of the record for combined home runs in a five-game series of 15 (Baltimore AL 10, Cincinnati NL 5, 1970). Although neither of the Game 5 starting pitchers, AJ Burnett and Cliff Lee, has allowed a home run in the playoffs, Burnett has a 39.2% flyball rate (11th in the league and the highest of his career since at least 2002) and Lee has a career rate of 42.3% (though only 36.5% in 2009). So unless they miss bats all night (like Lee did in Game 1), chances are decent that at least one plate appearance will end in a trot around the bases.

If the Phillies prevail tonight, the teams will eye the six-game-series record of 17 (New York AL 9, Brooklyn NL 8, 1953). The seven-game series record is 21 (San Francisco NL 14, Anaheim AL 7, 2002).*

The flip side of having so many home runs is that the series has had no triples, one of the game’s most exciting plays, and which the two host parks offer few of (Citizens Bank had the fourth-fewest in the NL , and Yankee Stadium was dead last in the AL with only 13 triples all season). If the series ends with nary a three-bagger, the Yankees and Phillies will tie the record held by several teams.

*Records courtesy of The Sporting News 2008 Baseball Record Book.

This entry was posted by Pip on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 3:34 pm and is filed under by the numbers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.