Lights Out: What a Hot Start Does and Doesn't Mean in Baseball

"Lights Out" was an old radio horror anthology, and only occasionally memorable, but it had an opening that, even for those who came to the show decades after it expired in the 1940s, is difficult to forget. An eerie wind blows and a bell tolls as if summoning mourners to a funeral. In cadence with each reverberation, a voice intones, "It… is… later… than… you… think."

And even in May, and even for teams that race out to hot starts, it is indeed later than it seems. Every club comes down to earth in some fashion, even ones playing at a historic pace. In the postwar period, just three teams have played .700 baseball over a full season: the 1954 Cleveland Indians, the 1998 New York Yankees, and the 2001 Seattle Mariners. In a 162-game schedule, it takes a .617 winning percentage to go 100-62; since expansion, only about 50 teams, or not quite one a season, have exceeded that rate of winning. Even stacked teams like the Boston Red Sox, the Chicago Cubs, and their few peers hovering around or above the .600 mark can play back even the hottest of starts. In fact, they usually do.

We may already be seeing this with the Chicago White Sox. On May 9, they won their fourth game in a row to raise their record to 23-10, a .697 percentage. "Pace" doesn't count for much, but at that moment they were pointed toward 113 wins. They've gone 4-10 since, eating their own little slice of Atlanta Braves pie—actually, if you're keeping track, the Braves have been a game better in that span. When even Chris Sale loses, as he did on Tuesday night, well, one of the most famous episodes of "Lights Out" was "The Mist," about a mysterious vapor that rips the human body inside out. The show's soundmen depicted the mist in action by reversing a wet rubber glove at the same time a berry basket was crushed. As best I can render the sound: "Gshplrhkhthrn." "Gshplrhkhthrn" is a fair description of the White Sox right now.

Chicago's National League franchise is also making some disturbing noises. At the conclusion of their eight-game winning streak on May 10, they were 25-6 (.806). Since then, they've gone 5-9, same as the Braves. Maybe this is just short-term turbulence, maybe it's gshplrhkhthrn. Time will tell.

Full "Lights Out"–style extrusion seems unlikely in the Cubs' case; despite some injuries, they are one of the deeper clubs in the majors. The White Sox jumped out in defiance of some clear weaknesses, among them the lack of a left-handed power bat and the presence of superannuated shortstop Jimmy Rollins—or, more specifically, their manager's weird obsession with giving him a primary role in the offense. General Manager Rick Hahn is aware of his club's shortcomings and would like to address them now: "You're so much better served getting that [additional] guy in early June than late July," Hahn said this week. The thought speaks well of him because one lesson of teams that start out like the 1927 Yankees only to suffer from Gone Dead Train syndrome is that complacency can turn a great beginning into a footnote, a false indicator.

Since the leagues split into divisions in 1969, many teams have looked like world-beaters only to fold beginning around the 50-game mark. You'd think that a team finishing game No. 50 with a 35-15 (.700) record, as the 2002 Red Sox did, could take the summer off, play .500 the rest of the way, and make the playoffs with a 91-71 record. And that certainly can happen. The Sox actually did a little better than that, going 58-54 (.518, an 84-win pace). But the Yankees were right behind them, trailing by just three games at No. 50; they played at a .626 clip the rest of the way and finished with 103 wins.

It wasn't that the Yankees, who were thrashed by the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the first round of the postseason, were a historic team destined to win it all. When the Red Sox were 35-15, that was real—it wasn't luck, nor sleight of hand. Few teams have sustained that pace, it's true, but their final record doesn't mean their situation was irretrievable. Some aspects of their downfall were attributable to standard baseball entropy, such as the broken finger that sidelined Manny Ramirez for six weeks after he slid head-first into catcher Dan Wilson, although in retrospect Ramirez was the human definition of non-standard baseball entropy. Mostly it was about a sketchy bullpen that was exacerbated by manager Grady Little's failure to leverage his relievers properly, and general manager Mike Port's inability to find better midseason upgrades than Alan Embree and Bob Howry. The Red Sox went 13-23 in one-run games, and that was pretty much that. A team's record in one-run games is reflective of luck, but only somewhat—luck can be influenced.

The 2002 Red Sox expired slowly while maintaining their dignity. Other decliners have gone somewhat innocently, teams like the 1978 Red Sox team that started 34-16, and finished 99-64 and shit out of luck after Bucky Dent did his thing. Or the 1993 San Francisco Giants, who started 32-18 and went home at 103-59 due to the lack of a wild card and the geographically inexplicable presence of the 104-win Braves in the National League West.

Some of these teams, though, do the equivalent of keeling over on the street corner while waiting for the light to change. Just one team in the division-play period has won 32 or more of their first 50 games (a .640 pace, or 104 wins over a full season) and finished with a losing record: the 1995 Phillies, who had the worst record in the NL the rest of the way at 36-58, a 100-loss pace. The explanation might be as simple as "injuries"—Lenny Dykstra and Curt Schilling got hurt, and hopefully convalesced together in some monastery where a vow of silence was the rule.

More typically, though, the story is like that of the 2002 Red Sox or, perhaps, the current White Sox: the team's inherent weaknesses go unaddressed and eventually devour the record. The 2001 Minnesota Twins hit Game 50 at 34-16 and went 51-61 from there. While it's tempting to think the club simply quit due to its owner lobbying for it to be contracted—that happened—the real culprit would seem to be a very modest pitching staff regressing very hard, particularly in the bullpen, and the very odd decision to swap starting right fielder Matt Lawton, hitting a strong .293/.396/.439 at the time, to the New York Mets for starting pitcher Rick Reed.

Observe also a moment of silence for the 1988 Yankees, who were 33-17 after 50. Then, in no particular order, Billy Martin did a lot of Billy Martin things and got fired; there were days when retired coach Chris Chambliss was activated (he struck out in his only at-bat) and pitcher Rick Rhoden was the DH; Jay Buhner was traded for Ken Phelps; and my car was stolen at Old Timers Day. Oh, and there was no pitching to speak of and nothing was done about it. Did I mention my car? It was the first time I drove to a game on my own. Anyway, the Yankees went 51-59 from then on.

To finish where we began, in Chicago, both the Cubs and the White Sox have had divisional-era teams go "Lights Out." The 1977 Cubs were 32-18 after 50, and proved to have little offense—Bobby Murcer hit 27 home runs; no one else hit more than 11—but perhaps the real fault lies with manager Herman Franks, who took emerging weapon Bruce Sutter and rode him hard, pitching him 45 times for a total of 81.1 innings in the first 97 games. The inevitable stint on the disabled list ensued, and Sutter would appear only 16 times over the remainder of the season.

As for the White Sox, the defending world champions began their 2006 title defense at 33-17 and finished at 90-72. A dynasty was born in May and was extinguished thereafter. The starting rotation lacked an ace and the offense had a few too many soft spots, but sometimes luck just turns. The 2005 team won a World Series despite a weak run-differential; the 2006 edition didn't get the same breaks. Perhaps as important, there were no midseason acquisitions of note.

That's the real lesson here: since 1969, 75 teams were 32-18 or better at the 50-game mark. Forty-eight of them went on to play in October and 22 of those went to the World Series. But that leaves nearly one-third of the teams on the outside looking in. Sometimes a team's record can be taken for granted, but relatively often there are weaknesses to be addressed. Get to fixing 'em now, general managers, or risk being left on the side of the road with Willie Randolph and Omar Minaya, whose 2007 Mets were 34-18 at the end of May, had a seven-game NL East lead as late as September 12, and were still in first place as late as the penultimate day of the season—only to discover that it was later than they thought.