Vahe Gregorian of the St. Louis Post Dispatch examined the psychological impact of losing streaks before the holidays. This wasn’t with respect to baseball, but Missouri University’s nine game losing streak to Illinois during this decade. It made Gregorian question what is a losing streak versus a statistical anomaly.

This a great question because it’s always hard to understand why certain teams seem to have another’s “number” so to speak. Back in the early nineties the Yankees couldn’t beat the Oakland Athletics. They lost 16 in a row between 1989 and 1991. This is particular odd in baseball since most believe there isn’t much of a carryover in a game that features a different starting pitcher every day. The Yankees were a pretty bad team during those seasons so maybe it was more of the talent gap between Oakland and New York. Perhaps, then explain the Mets struggles against the Atlanta Braves, specifically at Turner Field, during an eight year period from 1998 to 2005. The Mets had some good teams and some bad teams during that period, but they consistently struggled to beat the Braves. Even Tom Glavine, who was imported from Atlanta, couldn’t seem to solve his former team. It was such a big deal that an early April series in 2006 was considered “big” to prove to Atlanta that things were going to change. The Mets wound up taking six of nine against the Braves at Turner Field, including a sweep in late July.

So what should we take away from this situation? The linear crowd will probably have a graph to explain the dominance of one team over another. There is no doubt a talent gap will be at the root of such prolonged losing. The bigger question I have is does this type of situation mentally wear down a team? According to Dr. Sean McCann “when any individual or team gets into a losing streak, they lose their ability to keep their focus in the moment. So what happens is what I call time traveling: They either get ahead of themselves and start thinking about the outcome, or they go back to what’s happened in the past.” How do you explain different players wearing a uniform over the course multiple years? I suspect it goes into what Dr. John F. Murray calls the “modeling effect” in the article as he says this leads to creating a “monster” that doesn’t exist. When you live in a city that has 162 game seasons these players are consistently reminded about past failures, even if the current group isn’t necessarily tied to those defeats.

We have seen teams in this city consistently come up short and lose in a variety of ways. The Yankees were on the positive side of the Red Sox “curse”, the Rangers went 54 years without winning a Stanley Cup, and the Knicks never played their best basketball for Michael Jordan’s Bulls. There is no doubt talent plays a part in this, but you have to think a group of athletes feels the proverbial “monkey” that a history of losing can create.

For what it’s worth, Missouri beat the Illini this past Wednesday 81-68 and ending their decade long losing streak on a high note. Perhaps this group finally exorcised whatever demons were at the root of their problem, or was it just a statistical anomaly. Something tells me numbers can’t always explain consistent losing streaks.

Tags: Boston Red Sox, Dr. John F. Murray, Dr. Sean McCann, Missouri University, Missouri's Losing Streak Against Illinois, New York Knicks, New York Mets, New York Rangers, New York Yankees, Oakland Athletics, Psychology of Losing, Stanley Cup, The Red Sox Curse, Tom Glavine