The Giants Win the Pennant! The Giants Win the Pennant!

The Giants Win the Pennant! The Giants Win the Pennant!

An echo of 1951.

The weakest teams ever to win the World Series:

1. 2006 Cardinals 83-78 (over 95-67 Tigers)

2. 1987 Twins 85-77 (over 95-67 Cardinals)

3. 2000 Yankees 87-74 (over 94-68 Mets)

4. 2003 Marlins 91-71 (over 101-61 Yankees)

5. 1997 Marlins 92-70 (over 86-75 Indians)

The Royals were 89-73, the Giants 88-74. That means they have set the record for the most combined losses between World Series competitors (147), and worst combined record (177-147 .546).

This is the first WS in which neither team played .550 ball, and the first World Series in which the teams had a combined W-L percentage below .550. (It was .551 in both 1997 and 2006.)

On the other hand, because both teams had about the same record, the winner of this Series will not have a record among the three worst to win a World Series, although it will be the fourth-worst no matter the result.

NOTE 1: This is not the first World Series between wild-card teams. The Angels and Giants played in 2002, but that drew little attention because both teams were excellent. (Angels 99-63, Giants 95-66).

NOTE 2: 1997 was not a Wild-Card World Series. Despite their weak record, the 1997 Indians were not a wild-card team, although they won ten fewer games than the actual wild-card team (the Yankees). Cleveland won a listless division, comparable to the one that produced the weakest World Series winner in history, the 2006 Cardinals. In fact the 1997 Indians played in an even worse division than the 2006 Cards. They actually won by six games and could have won with a .500 record!