The Stat Hole: Stupid Sports Stats From the Past Week - November 3, 2026
I don't know who's even out there reading any of these blogs, but cheers to you for at least stopping by The Stat Hole.
Just a small handful of things from the past week in sports. But they are pretty funny. The Brewers won the World Series and I did some homework to find champion players who "got an A on the group project" as good or better than Shane Drohan. And you better believe we are digging into quarterbacks who won an NFL game without completing a single pass. You won't believe this, but Baker Mayfield doesn't have the all time record (1). Someone has 2. Another records that will never be broken I'll put in my holster.
This is The Stat Hole.
Elsa. Getty Images.Let's wrap up MLB with a fun little walk down "got an A on the group project" road. As discussed last week, the Milwaukee Brewers were a pure baseball machine. Even as a Cubs fun I can't find anything to hate on them for as a team. All of their players are solid, and play the game the right way.
But even machines have nuts or bolts that rust occasionally. Shane Drohan was that little bit of rust who cost the team was a perfect 8-0 record from the league championship through World Series. Four hits, an ER and blown save in the longest 0.0 innings he'll ever pitch. That was Drohan's World Series contribution. This is the tough reality for relief pitchers in October. Much like place kickers, the time you have to affect the game is both short and drastic.
But hey. Still got an A!
I scoured for other examples of role-players who won a World Series when their team brought their A game to make up for it. Let's give these guys their shine. Don't you forget. They are technically champions too.
Bob's only World Series appearance in 1981 was in a starting role of a must win Game 4 when his Dodgers were down 2-1 to the Yankees. He gave a triple to start the game to Willie Randolph before improving his game on the second batter who only hit for a double. Then a walk, then a single. He was then pulled right after without getting a proper chance for a one-inning pitcher's cycle. Just needed to give up that homer. The dodgers still won the game 8-7.
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I'm pretty sure ChatGPT used the same guy in these images and just added a mustache and darkened the hair. Specifically after I told it to redo with the right people. I literally did all the hard work querying the data for this and it couldn't even figure this out.
Then we have Larry Christenson the year before. Also in Game 4. He was able to what Welch failed - give up a one-inning pitcher's cycle. Single, triple, home run, then a double to end his performance. That's how it's done. The Phillies would not win this game.
A couple other role player comps crossed my desk from other sports. Guys who had very little opportunity to make a chance on a championship team, but boy when they did it did not go well.
Champions. That's all they have to say.
One last MLB tidbit. What made this World Series great was just how incredible both teams were in playing to game smart. Doing the little things. Staying smart at the plate. The whole nine. And I kept hearing John Smoltz mention how good the batters were after going down 0-2 in the count. Many players get desperate and swing away, chase bad pitchers, etc. One way you could proxy quantify this is simply by averaging how many pitches batters took after going down 0-2. Would they give up? Would they strike out right after or ground out from swinging at a bad pitch?
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Smoltz was on to something.
Combining both these teams and you have the most disciplined 0-2 count batters since around 2005 when pitch order level data was available for me to scrounge up. And look at the five highlighted rows on the graph. All from the last five years of World Series'. That's pretty wild to me. I feel like I always hear pitching is dominant over batting in some ways. But even with guys like Misiorowski out there flaming 4-seamers at 103, the batters are giving a damn good fight.
Great World Series. Of course it wasn't as good as last years. That's fine. 2025 was the all time best World Series if you ask me. But great baseball played. Needed to be outdoors, but what are you going to do.
OK - Baker Mayfield time.
Obviously weather was the x-factor here. But going 0/3 for 0 yards in a shutout win is hilarious. Maybe it's a good thing the Rays were playing inside after all. I ran some historical lookups for all games in which a team completed zero passes and still won. They mentioned the 1974 Bills in Week 3 over the Jets, but here are some other performances you'll probably only get here.
- 1950 Browns (Week 12 vs Eagles)
The victorious Browns combined for 41 rushes and zero pass attempts. Their quarterback was none other than Otto Graham too. Five rushes, -5 yards.
- 1945 Steelers (Week 8 vs Chicago Cardinals)
Bill Dudley 0-6
- 1942 Steelers (Week 5 vs Brooklyn Dodgers)
Bill Dudley 0-4
That's right. Our guy Bill Dudley has TWO games in which he's won as a quarterback who didn't complete a pass. Now in fairness, he wasn't the only ball thrower in these games, but was the main signal caller. I'm pretty sure, anyway. I wasn't there.
All in all I show five games this happened since the 1940s. 1930s and prior? How many games? Any guesses? Any guesses?
768. Thank god for the forward pass.
One last thing. Tom Brady now has a commanding lead in on air "shit" calls. If you hear anyone say shit on a broadcast, please drop me a tip.