MLB end of the season 2011. Unusual? Momentum in Baseball? Tired?

So as I am trying to recover from lack of sleep because of last night's extra inning and rain delayed MLB games. I am starting to ask a few questions about the last day of the regular season itself.

First was the number of extra inning game unusual? The answer appears to be yes, but not unheard of. About 10% of all MLB baseball games go into extra innings so last night was not really that out of whack. I am still looking into overcoming a seven run deficit to win a game with less than two innings left which I do believe is an extremely rare event.

I also noticed that the both the Rays and the Orioles were the teams that came back late in the game and went on to win. So my knee jerk reaction was that momentum was a major factor in those teams winning the game, Momentum is huge in sports. Then I had a flash back moment and realized that momentum in sports is a popular truism, but a practical myth. Here is the link that talk about the lack of momentum in Baseball.

Either way praise is in order for the Tampa Bay Rays and condolences for the Boston Red Sox. The Sabermetrics guys at Tampa Bay do an amazing job of finding potential on a limited budget, and the Red Sox's analysts like Bill James and Tom Tippett showed them the way. Remember we never fail, but always see ways to improve our prediction