Written by Games Pergame

Now, before we talk about the Season 10 Philly Pies, we have to talk about the Season 9 Election. And before we talk about the Season 9 Election, we have to talk about Targeted Shame and the Shame Bubble. And before we talk about Targeted Shame and the Shame Bubble, we have to, as a consequence of opening the Forbidden Book, observe Blaseball’s Rule 5.i:

    “i. Shame Phase: If the home team scores the winning run in the bottom of the final inning, the away team must complete the game in shame, despite being mathematically eliminated.”

    This rule has been a part of Blaseball since the beginning, and in the Season 4 Election, the Decree that passed was Targeted Shame, resulting in the top 4 Season 4 teams starting a game with Unruns (or negative Runs) if they had been Shamed in a previous game, equal their Shame (the runs they were Shamed by).

    In the Season 9 Election, there were two Bubble Blessings that put several teams on this list. The Boston Flowers received the Shame Bubble Blessing, applying Targeted Shame to every Division outside the Wild Low, and the Baltimore Crabs received the Fifth Base Bubble Blessing, forcing every team outside the Wild High to round a fourth base before coming home. Every Mild League team was affected by both of these blessings, and of the 4 teams that League would send to the Postseason that year, 3 of them are on this list. But for the Pies, I want to talk about the Shame Bubble in particular. 

    In total, teams would be shamed 83 times in Season 10, including the Teams in the Wild Low Division, and 60 times for the teams affected by Targeted Shame. In those 60 games where a team was Shamed, the winning teams generated a total of 91 Shame. When that Shame manifested as Unruns, the Shamed teams succeeded in reclaiming 75 of those 91 runs, resulting in just 16 runs manifesting as negative final scores across 14 games. Of those games, the most out of all 14, 3 were games where the Pies ended the game unable to recover from the Unruns given to them by their Shame Donors. 

    Now we’re ready to talk about the Season 10 Philly Pies.

    Now, some readers might already be raising a concern about this Season for the Pies being on the list. If Targeted Shame is granting them Unruns, that means that any tally of Runs over the season would have to account for the runs the Pies made to get out of their Shame, right? Well, yes. The Season 10 Pies successfully scored Runs while their Score was negative 6 times – bringing their alleged Run total to 420, above the Season 6 San Fransisco Lovers, which we talked about last time on Running Low. And they ended 3 games with a final score that was negative, which would also reduce their final running score, again allegedly bringing their total to 423, or tied with the Season 3 Canada Moist Talkers, who were #9 on this list.

    But those readers are forgetting two things. Firstly, Runs and Unruns are objects that cancel each other out, as easily as they can be collected by Sun 2 and Black Holes – the Unruns donated to the Pies truly did reduce their seasonal score. And secondly, this list is for the Lowest Scoring Postseason Eligible Seasons. All that truly matters is their scores. So let’s check those out, shall we?

Here’s the Pies’ running Runs over the season, plotted against the Season 10 Champs the Baltimore Crabs, the Pies’ in-League rival, the Hades Tigers, and the overall League average. As you can see, the Tigers and the Pies were essentially entwined until around Day 70, where the Pies pulled ahead and stayed ahead. 

I feel like in this list it’s important to note how close those two are – despite spending 20 days making progress at about the same rate, the Tigers ended their Season with 1 fewer win but 13 fewer Runs. They missed the 4th seed by two Wins, as a tie would have given the Seed to the Pies on Divine Favor. A simple reminder that sometimes the difference between playing as efficiently as possible and not quite playing well enough is a razor thin line. 

    The Crabs absolutely dominated in their Pre-Ascension season in terms of raw Runs per Game. The Pies were not really noteworthy with either statistic, coming in above average in Runs per Game overall and running a little ahead of the pack in Runs per Win. It is interesting to note that they still scored more Runs per Game with 5 bases than all 5 members of the Wild Low. The Wild Low division still scored fewer runs in the games they did win, with the exception of the Hellmouth Sunbeams, who went above and beyond. 

    In this series, I’m assigning each game a Wasted Run count. Essentially, this is runs that don’t directly contribute to a win. Anything over the necessary margin of victory is wasted, and any runs scored in a loss are wasted. If you’re curious about my reasoning, please check out Part 1 of this series. 

    Now, let’s check out those Wasted Runs. It’s important to note: when calculating Wasted Runs, if a team scores in a game that they lose, that’s a Wasted Run. As a result of this, if a team possesses Unruns at the time of a loss – they are considered to have Unwasted that Run when considering their Season as a whole.

    Is it fair of me to calculate it like this? Is Blaseball fair?

The Pies also came in just over the middle of the League in terms of Wasted Runs – 227 of their Runs that Season were wasted. What do those look like over time?

    And that’s what we’re really here for, isn’t it? Those three little dips. Other teams were Shamed more frequently. The Baltimore Jazz Hands had the same number of Unruns left on the final scoreboard. But the Pies stand alone with three separate games this Season showing Unruns, and they almost occurred in the same 9-day week. Let’s see how they came about. 

    On Day 51, the Pies were closing out a series at the Kansas City FreshDome against the Breath Mints. They had won the first two games handily, and you can see by the line just before the dip below zero that both of those games were Optimal Wins. Unfortunately, in the third game of the series, the Breath Mints came back in the last inning and Stew Briggs drove in a 2-Run Home Run, donating an Unrun the Pies would take with them to Dallas on Day 52. 

    On Day 56, after a blowout win while visiting the Charleston Shoe Thieves at Choux Stadium, the Shoe Thieves came back and Shamed the Pies in Game 2. The Pies were unable to recover the ground on Day 57, and took home an Unrun at the end of the series.

    Finally, on Day 62, the Pies took a crushing loss while visiting the Seattle Garages, ending Game 2 of their series 6 to 10. They tried to make up the ground in Game three, but despite 2 Home Runs by Eduardo Woodman and a Home Steal by Lang Richardson, the Pies would take home their third Unrun. 

    Now, if you’re a Pies fan, you’re likely quite mad at me. Here’s an article series celebrating some of the most efficient Postseason runs in ILB history, and these Pies overcame two league-wide obstacles for a shot at the title, and I just spent the tail end of it focusing on three Losses. 

    But here’s the thing – they did make it. They pulled ahead of the Tigers late in the season and held onto the lead by more than their Divine Favor required. That’s something to be celebrated for sure. The journey there is an important part of that, and I think there’s something to be learned, and also celebrated, in each step and stumble along the way. 

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 – https://docs.sibr.dev/docs/apis/reference/Chronicler.v1.yaml

    -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: THE SEASON 3 CANADA MOIST TALKERS

-PART 3: THE SEASON 6 SAN FRANCISCO LOVERS

-PART 4: THE SEASON 7 PHILLY PIES

-PART 5: COMING SOON

-PART 6: COMING SOON

-PART 7: COMING SOON

-PART 8: COMING SOON

-PART 9: COMING SOON

-PART 10: COMING SOON