How Good Were the 1995 Indians at Coming From Behind?

If you spend any time listening to Matt and Rick during the Indians broadcast on Fox Sports Ohio, you have doubtless heard the ramblings of nostalgia that ultimately end in something alone the lines of “it’s so hard to win if you don’t score first, except for the 1995 Indians who seemed to do it every night.” This is not an idea exclusive to the Indians announcers as many conversations with even casual Indians fans have delved into a similar topic. If there is one pervasive societal memory of the 1995 Indians, it is that they were a great come back team.

For the sake of fact checking, however, it is worth looking back to see how true this was. More than any other sport, baseball fans have a tendency to glorify the past, elevating previous stars to godhood and discounting the current efforts of active athletes.

Before getting into any actual numbers, there is a great chance the 1995 Indians were a great close/late team for the same reasons detailed in the look at one run games from last week. Come backs generally stem from the same pieces of a team that lead to great success in one run games, most notably great relief pitching and hitters with a high probability of launching a ball out of the park. If there has ever been a team with those two facets it was the Albert Belle, Jose Mesa Indians of 1995. In addition, they had the one aspect that helps in comeback wins, but not in one run games, an unreliable starting rotation.

The above chart is a simple breakdown of that season by a few different in game situations and the results may be exactly as they have been remembered. Of course, the Indians won all 53 games in which they never gave up the lead, but surprisingly, they also won 47 of 91 games in which they gave up the lead at some point. According to fangraphs.com WPA, an average team over the past ten years that holds a one run lead through the first inning has a 60% chance of winning the game. This means that at best, an average team would be expected to win 40% of games of the games they are losing at some point. The 1995 Indians won 51.6% of these games. Even more impressively, winning extra inning games are essentially a 50/50 split with a slight advantage to the home team, but the Indians won all 13 including two games at home when the visiting team scored first and the Indians scored twice in the bottom of the inning to walk off. Speaking of walk-offs, they had 12 to just two given up.

All that could be enough to put this subject to rest. It really was a regular event for the Indians to come back and win games in 1995. There is a deeper question, however. By winning more than 69% of their games, the 1995 squad was the second best regular season team in Indians history behind only 1954 (111-43, .721 WP) so it is expected that they should have won more games than an average team. More than a full third of their games they lead from the first score of the game and never gave up the lead. This is not the sign of a lucky team with a poor rotation and great bullpen that relies on come behind wins, but an unstoppable juggernaut that wins in any fashion.

The assumption when discussing the prowess of the team in come back affairs is that this was a specialty. That they were particularly efficient in this style of game and that it often showed in late inning heroics. To look at that, we can further break down those games that the opposition held a lead at some point.

Before getting into this chart, it’s important to note that the Indians averaged 5.8 runs per game and allowed 4.2. Compared to 1994 and 1999, that offense wasn’t particularly impressive, but compared to the rest of the Indians 116 year history, it’s incredible. The Indians haven’t hit five runs per game for a season since 2007 and did so just four times between 1940 and 1993 (the 1930’s were a boon for offenses all around baseball after Babe Ruth taught everyone that chicks dig the long ball). Simply by scoring 5.8 runs per game, we can discount any games where the opposition scored first, but did so with three or less runs. Chances are, the Indians were going to get to that number in a few innings anyway, sometimes it just took a little longer than others.

Because of that prodigious offense, we can discount some the eight games that the Indians allowed the opponent to score first, but regained the lead by the second inning as well as the ten games that they won by four or more (there is some overlap here). In 30 games, the deficit overcome by the Indians was two or fewer runs and as shown above, the average came out to 2.2. This shouldn’t be surprising. This was an incredibly well put together team as a whole, featuring great offense that didn’t just hit for power, but got on base at a great rate, had speed and hit for a high average throughout. While the pitching staff wasn’t that of today’s team, it was good enough for the era and the bullpen was magnificent. It’s hard to fall behind too far when you’re constantly out scoring runs.

This is not to say that the 1995 Indians didn’t have their moments of clutch and it was these moments that have stuck in people’s heads to give rise to the myth that they were better in come back affairs than they were generally. The most impressive win of the season had to have been on June 4th, when the Blue Jays scored seven in the top of the first against Jason Grimsley (there’s an answer to how to have a bunch of comeback games; let Jason Grimsley start for you). Grimsley retired just one batter, but Chad Ogea came in and allowed just one more run over the next 6.2 innings. The eight run deficit was the largest overcome by the Tribe in 1995 as they put up one in the third, two in the fourth and fifth, one more in the sixth and three in the ninth to walk off. This type of game is much more memorable than the five in a row (and eight of eleven) that they won from June 26th to July 6th by never allowing an opponent to hold a lead at all.

Perhaps I have been a little too harsh on the Indians starting staff to this point. Dennis Martinez was actually among the most dominant starters in baseball and Orel Hershiser was pretty good for an old man as well. Ogea pitched well when in the rotation, but the positives ended there as Charles Nagy, Ken Hill, Mark Clark and Bud Black all made at least ten starts and finished with an ERA at or above 4.00. Because of this, the Indians had 41 games where they allowed two or fewer runs and they won every single one of them. They also had 18 where they allowed eight or more runs and they won just five of these, one being the game detailed above against Toronto.

The whole point of this lengthy exercise is not necessarily to extol the praises of the 1995 Indians, but to show that they won all kinds of games. Yes, they won close games and late games and come back games. Of course they did, they were an incredible team and when the rare team comes along that wins nearly 70% of their games, they will win all kinds of games. Because the more exciting wins stick in the mind for a longer period, the reputation of the Indians as a come from behind team has stuck, but the fact is, the vast majority of the Indians wins in 1995 weren’t dramatic. As mentioned early on, the Indians run differential for the season was +1.62 per game. In their wins, that number went up to 3.68. As scary as it may seem, if the Indians had had three reliable starters all season instead of two, they may have tacked on another 5-10 wins by eliminating some of the blow out losses.

If there is a moral of this story, it is not to base your expectations for the present on one outlier of a season. Chances are, the Indians 13-0 record in extra inning games will never be matched again in Cleveland. The amount of talent and luck that goes into such a feat are certainly not easily repeatable in any manner. As for the comebacks, they should have been expected based on the team’s great offensive production and relief pitching. Whether you still want to consider the 1995 team to be particularly adept at winning games late and close beyond their prodigious record in all games in general is up to you, but it is certainly an unfair barometer to base any expectations off, now or in the future.