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Ripple effect

Yet neither of those turnarounds could compare to the evening’s you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me capstone. To end Boston’s season without facing them in a one-game playoff, the Rays would have to beat the New York Yankees. In the eighth inning of that contest, Tampa Bay was down 7-0—putting their probability of victory at one in 333.

But as Mr Carrey would have it, there was still a chance. The Rays rallied for six runs, leaving them down by just one going into the final frame. The Yankees did not score. In the ninth inning, the first two Rays struck out. In desperation they summoned Dan Johnson—by one measure the worst batter in baseball this year—as a pinch-hitter. Mr Johnson quickly went down two strikes. With just one pitch separating the Rays from defeat, he crushed the next offering into the seats for a game-tying home run. Three extra frames later, Evan Longoria hit a walk-off home run to send the Red Sox—who presumably were watching the game on television—home. Yeah—here’s the graph.

Let’s rehash. There was something on the order of an 0.5% chance the Red Sox would blow their nine-game lead over the Rays, and a 2% chance the Braves would lose their seven-and-a-half-game edge over the Cardinals. Then in tonight’s matchups, there was a 13% chance the Phillies would come back to beat Atlanta, a 5% chance the Orioles would come back to beat Boston, and an 0.3% chance the Rays would come back to beat New York. Multiply it all out, and the odds of witnessing what we just witnessed were worse than one in 500m. Suddenly, Mr Carrey’s optimism seems entirely justifiable.