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Yesterday was a great example of the old mantra that no lead is safe at Coors Field. The D-backs went into the bottom of the ninth four runs up and with a Win Probability of 97.3%. One out later, after David Dahl stole second base, that had plummeted to 42.3%, as first Andrew Chafin, then Greg Holland struggled to come to terms with Colorado. Arizona finally were able to scratch out a one-run win, and the much-cursed (by Rockies’ fans) contracts given to Ian Desmond and Chris Iannetta came back to bite them, both men striking out with the winning run in scoring position. Just another Coors Field game where the loser scored nine runs...
I’m not kidding: since the park opened in 1995, there have been 121 contests where a team has scored 9+ and still been defeated, so averaging about five a year at Coors. For comparison, last year across the majors, teams scoring 9+ runs in the National League had a win percentage of .955, with a record of 235-11. A couple of the most infamous examples: on July 17, 2000 the Rockies played the A’s in a double-header, and in both games, the loser scored 9+, as Colorado and Oakland split them, 10-11 and 10-9. Then, in 2008, there was the game against the Marlins which finished 18-17, Miami blowing a nine-run lead. It’s still the only NL game since 1979 where a team scored seventeen runs and lost.
At least Arizona held on: scoring ten runs and being beaten would have been a severe double-helping of loss-flavored tacos. We’ve already had those five times this year, which considering the Diamondbacks have only had 13 defeats all told, is quite... impressive? There were only nine such all last season, so we’re over half that total already. That included one double-helping, an 11-10 loss to... well, what a surprise, the Colorado Rockies. Though that one was actually at Chase Field. There have been 25 games in Phoenix where the loser has scored 9+, so only about 20% of the number at Coors, albeit in three fewer seasons. There’s never been a 12+ run loss at Chase; Coors has had fourteen of them...