Written by Games Pergame

Everyone loves a comeback story. And this? This is a comeback story. 

Season 6 was rough for the Mexico City Wild Wings. The High Filter Decree had passed the previous election and shaken up the league – teams went from being in performance neutral, alignment-based divisions into quartile-based divisions. Every team faced challenges with this – several teams that had easily breezed into the Postseason in previous Seasons were now facing tougher teams more often – but the Wild Wings were facing an identity crisis.

Previously a Lawful Evil team, the Wild Wings had posted a 49-50 win record, they were 11th out of 20 in Season 5 and were relegated to the Mild Low division. No big deal, right? 

But these were the Wild Wings. They didn’t belong in the Mild League, and they were not quiet about it. The Mexico City Wild Wings Legal Team filed suit against Internet League Blaseball, claiming that, among other things, the placement constituted “Unjust Humiliation” and “Loss of Brand Value.” The Commissioner, at first dismissive, filed a counter-suit. The Wild Wings Legal Team filed a memorandum, which the Commissioner dismissed. The ILB continued to goad the Wild Wings, changing their name in official broadcasts to the “Mild Wings”, and moving their home city from Mexico city to Wexico City and back. Needless to say, the cost of moving their ballpark, the Bucket, repeatedly, was a significant price to pay for the Wild Wings Franchise. 

Then, at the end of the Regular Season, when the Peanut’s chosen were not placed above the Line on the Idol Board and the Third Strike was called, the Mexico City Wild Wings were officially renamed the Mexico City Mild Wings. They had no Postseason Birth, they ended Season 6 in a worse place than they started, they had won no blessings, and they had lost a core part of their identity. 

They came back in Season 7 and earned a Postseason Birth while only scoring 425 Runs.

In this article series, we’re going to be looking at the Top 10 Lowest Scoring Postseason-Eligible Seasons in Blaseball History (at time of writing, Seasons 1 to 12). This isn’t really the range of Champions – those tend to score high and win big. We aren’t looking at the Party Time speedrunners either – these are teams that seriously contend and earn their playoff position. And those 425 Runs? They are # 10 on our list.

Welcome to Ch- _{wait, I’m sorry, I gotta take this. Yeah? What do you mean we’re not doing the Chart Party Reference? There’s not a good place to put the ‘L’? But c’mon, I got out all m- okay. Yup. Okay.}

Well, I have some charts for you to look at. Let’s see what we can find, yeah?

Let’s start by looking at cumulative Runs for the Postseason qualifying teams in the Mild League, as well as the league overall average. As you can see, the Mild Wings are trailing by quite a bit, even under the League Average. The Wild League was putting up a lot of runs (especially the Baltimore Crabs, who put up over 100 runs more than the Mild Wings) and the Mild League is always competitive as well.

When it comes to turning those runs into Wins though, that’s another story. The Mild Wings clearly qualified for the Postseason, because that’s why we’re here, but they ended the Regular Season with four wins over the 5th place in their League, and almost 10 wins over everyone else. So how were they able to turn such a low Run count into Wins?

As you can see, the Mild Wings were in the middle of the pack in Runs per Game with 4.29 , but they were the team to beat in terms of Runs / Win coming in at 5.27, almost a quarter of a point above the next best Team in that metric, the Unlimited Tacos. No other Team could assemble a Win in as few Runs, which is quite impressive.

In terms of efficiency, I’ve also scored each of their games with a “Wasted Run” count. Wasted Runs are runs that are either above the one point lead that’s necessary for victory. Remember Game 1 of the series, back on Day 94? The Tigers scored 13 points while already ahead 4 to 1 near the end of that game. Those points didn’t help them win. Those points didn’t even help them secure their victory. It was running around the bases because it’s fun, and while that’s neat, that’s not what we’re here for.

Added to my calculation are any runs scored in a defeat. Now, I know that’s not fair. Runs scored during a defeat are still an attempt at victory, a solid shot at trying to make something happen. But we’re looking at the most efficient Regular Seasons in the first 12 Seasons of Blaseball. Every run counts towards that total, and every run that isn’t necessary to lock in your playoff spot is, at least for this exercise, wasted. 

Here’s where the Wild Wings are. In Runs per Game, they were far from the lowest, but they definitely didn’t showboat as much as the Crabs, who averaged almost 4 unnecessary runs per game. Disgraceful.

The Wild Wings wasted almost 300 of their 425 runs, ending up with just 143 runs productively building Wins for their squad. Let’s check out those Wasted Runs by Day, shall we? 

So it looks like they wasted 253 of their 425 runs, ending up with just 172 runs productively building Wins for the Mild Wings. Let’s check out those Wasted Runs by Day, shall we? 

They weren’t even the best Team in the League by Optimal Games, or Games where they didn’t score any Wasted Runs – they scored a respectable 20, but so did the Yellowstone Magic, and this was in a Season where the Breckenridge Jazz Hands and the Hawai’i Fridays racked up 24 and 25 Optimal Games, respectively. 

Of those 12 Optimal Games, 1 was pitched by Kennedy Rodgers, 2 were pitched by Rafael David, and 5 each were pitched by Stephanie Winter and Burke Gonzales. But Silvia Rugrat was the Optimal Games star for the Mild Wings, pulling in 7 Optimal Games, 6 of them Wins. Let’s check out a few of those Wins, shall we?

On Day 24, Silvia faced down the Philly Pies and kept up the defenses, keeping the game tied into three extra innings and giving José Haley a chance to drive in a solo Home Run to Shame the Philly Pies.

    On Day 34, Silvia faces down rough competition from the San Francisco Lovers, but Ronan Combs comes in with a steal on home in the bottom of the ninth, and with two on base a Double from Summers Preston ends the game in Shame for the Lovers.

    Despite a slip up in the second inning, the Mild Wings put consistent pressure on the Magic to bring up a rare high-scoring Optimal Game on Day 69.

On Day 74, the Mild Wings face a team they’d be contending for a Postseason spot with, resulting this incredibly tight Optimal Game at the Bucket. Silvia keeps the Breath Mints from advancing past first base in the second half and keeps the hard-earned Mild Wings’ advantage. 

So, what did we learn here? Well, the Mild Wings were capable of constructing a Win Object with very few runs, but they also consistently built a bit of safety into their Games.

This was not an easy season to be trying – Jaylen Hotdogfingers had returned from Incineration, and her Debt was causing untold casualties across the league. Even so, the Mild Wings scrapped and fought their way to a Postseason Birth, in spite of everything the gods and the Commissioner put in their way.

If you’re a dedicated Blaseball fan, you know where this is going. I said at the top of this article that the list isn’t really the place for Champions – Champions normally win by huge margins and are top of their game in slugging. I won’t normally get too in the weeds on Postseason appearances But just this once? I told you we’d get that comeback story.

After six Seasons with no Postseason appearances, the Mild Wings take down the Kansas City Breath Mints 3 to 1, then become the Mild League Champs in a difficult series against the Garages, after which the Commissioner returns their name to them. In Game 4 of the Finals they became the Season 7 ILB Champs by Shaming the Lovers in an Optimal Game – and they did it as the Wild Wings. 

This article was made possible with the wonderful tools created and maintained by the folks at the Society for Internet Blaseball Research – check out:

• Chronicler API

    -Reblase – reblase.sibr.dev (Thanks @AReblase!)

    -Blaseball Line Score Tool – linescore.sibr.dev

    -Blaseball Reference – blaseball.reference.com

    And of course, the Blaseball Wiki – blaseball.wiki

RUNNING LOW

-PART 1: THE SEASON 7 MEXICO CITY WILD WINGS

-PART 2: COMING SOON

-PART 3: COMING SOON

-PART 4: COMING SOON

-PART 5: COMING SOON

-PART 6: COMING SOON

-PART 7: COMING SOON

-PART 8: COMING SOON

-PART 9: COMING SOON

-PART 10: COMING SOON