When NESN's Dave O'Brien Speaks Extemporaneously About Baseball History, He Might Be Right, But Every Single Time I Fact-Check His Statements, He's Wrong

Dave O'Brien believes he knows baseball: the rules of the game, trends in how the game has been played and managed during his broadcasting career, which statistics best show a player's real contributions, etc.

He certainly should know these things, since they are an essential part of his job. As the Red Sox's play-by-play announcer for NESN, he is the main guy in the booth. He should act as the conduit between the game and the fans watching at home. It's not asking too much to expect him to be more knowledgeable than the average fan on the street.

If you spend any amount of time really listening to O'Brien, however, you will discover that he knows far less about baseball than he appears to. He's unsure of basic rules, he's oblivious to decades-long trends that have forever changed the game, and he cannot stop sharing, and expressing amazement at, useless factoids (you can't call them statistics). He also uses terms like "slide-in double", a phrase which no one else in the history of baseball has ever uttered (or even thought).

O'Brien also has the annoying habit of calling a play - a pitch, a hit, a catch, whatever - before it happens. When he does this, he often has to scramble to mask his error and then tell listeners what actually happened. You'd think messing up like that a few times would embarrass him and convince him to stop that practice. It hasn't. He gets burned by it at least a couple of times every single night.

And when O'Brien speaks extemporaneously, often about the sport's (or, specifically, Red Sox) history, the information he gives should not be believed. (It might be true, but in an appalling number of instances, it is completely wrong.)

There are several examples at the bottom of this post, but I want to start with his latest disinformation, which occurred last night. Nate Lowe, the Rays' designated hitter, led off the top of the seventh. Red Sox reliever Darwinzon Hernandez threw a 0-1 pitch. O'Brien:

Slapped foul, 0-2. One-run game. What else is new when it's the Red Sox and Rays? (long pause) It's very often the case that it comes down to a run when these two clubs meet. That's been going on for years.

As proof of this, O'Brien gave the scores of the last series the two teams had played (July 22-24): 9-4, 5-4, and 3-2.

Well, okay. Two of those three games were decided by one run. ... But the scores of the five games before that were 6-1, 5-1, 9-2, 5-1, 5-2. Adding in Tuesday's 6-5 loss, that's three out of last nine games. One-third (33%) is not "very often".

The winner of six of this season's 13 games between Boston and Tampa Bay won by a single run. ... Less than 50% is also not "very often".

But what about O'Brien's claim that this preponderance of one-run games has been "going on for years"?

Number of One-Run Games Between Red Sox and Rays

2019: 6 of 13
2018: 7 of 19
2017: 5 of 19
2016: 7 of 19
2015: 5 of 19
2014: 7 of 19
2013: 6 of 19

Last seven seasons: 43 of 127 games were decided by one run: 33.86%. (Again, "very often" should be more than one out of three, right?) In none of the last six completed seasons has the number of one-run Red Sox/Rays games been close to even half of the total games played that season. (7 of 19 is 36.8%.)

Of course, after seeing those numbers, I had to look at every season since 1998, when the Devil Rays debuted.

2012: 4 of 18
2011: 4 of 18
2010: 4 of 18
2009: 2 of 18
2008: 6 of 18
2007: 5 of 18
2006: 4 of 19
2005: 7 of 19
2004: 1 of 19
2003: 8 of 19
2002: 3 of 19
2001: 4 of 19
2000: 3 of 12
1999: 4 of 13
1998: 4 of 12

The only season to get anywhere close to 50% was 2003 when 42.11% of the games were one-run affairs.

The Final Tally

The Red Sox and (Devil) Rays have played 386 games since June 12, 1998. Only 27.46% of the games (106) have been decided by one run.

That percentage is roughly identical to the number of one-run games overall.

2019: 1,592 games. 424 one-run games. 26.63% (Games thru July 29)
2018: 2,431 games. 668 one-run games. 27.48%
2017: 2,430 games. 646 one-run games. 26.58%
2016: 2,428 games. 686 one-run games. 28.25%

Also: It should not be overlooked that after O'Brien says something that can be quickly and easily debunked, he almost never corrects himself.

Other Recent Examples

May 9-11, 2017

In The First Of Three Games Against The Brewers, O'Brien Said The Red Sox Had Never Led (Although Mookie Betts Began The Game With A Home Run, Something OB Probably Should Have Remembered). This Incorrect Information Was Repeated Several Times During The Next Two Games

May 9

O'Brien (T1): "And the 3-2 to Betts ... There's a shot, drilled to deep left-center field, sailing back, and she is out of here! ... He put a charge into that one, for his fourth home run of the season ... So the Red Sox on top just like that, 1-0."

The Brewers scored five times in the bottom of the first inning and never looked back.

O'Brien (B8): "The Red Sox have never led and have never tied Milwaukee in this game."

May 10

The Brewers scored two runs in the first inning. The Red Sox tied the game with single runs in the second and fourth innings, and prepared to bat in the fifth.

O'Brien (T5): "The Red Sox two and the Brewers two. The Red Sox have not had a lead yet, in this series."

May 11

Betts began the afternoon game with a double, and eventually scored on an infield error.

O'Brien (T1): "And the Red Sox, for the first time in the series, have a lead."

O'Brien (T6): "The Red Sox did not have a lead in the first two games here."

June 27, 2017

O'Brien Believes Ty Cobb Played Against The Minnesota Twins, But Cobb Was 74 When The Twins Played Their First Game (And He Died Three Months Later)

O'Brien (B3): "Against the Twins - how about this? - only two guys have a higher career batting average in major league history. One is Mark Teixeira, who of course retired after last year, .362. The other? Ty Cobb. .378. Dustin Pedroia, .360.

Dennis Eckersley: "They were called the Twins back then? I mean, when Cobb was playing?"

O'Brien: "I'm looking. ... I think so."

What are you looking at? ... The Washington Senators moved to Minnesota after the 1960 season. The Twins played their first game on April 11, 1961. Ty Cobb passed away approximately three months later, on July 17, 1961, at the age of 74. It should go without saying that the Georgia Peach did not play in any major league games during the final three months of his life. He played his last game in September 1928.

September 23, 2017

O'Brien Says Ted Williams Had An On-Base Percentage Over .500 Five Times, But In One Of The Seasons, He Had Only 12 Plate Appearances, And In Another, He Played A Total Of Three Full Games

O'Brien (T5): "[We] were talking about Joey Votto's stated dream one day to have a .500 on-base percentage over an entire season, how unlikely that is this day and age. He's a huge Ted Williams fan. Huge Ted Williams fan. Ted Williams did that five times in his career."

O'Brien (B9): "Ted Williams did it five times in his career - and two other times, his on-base percentage finished at .499."

If O'Brien had actually looked at Williams's stats, he would have seen that in one of those five seasons (1952), TSW started only two games, came to bat 12 times, and did not play after April. O'Brien is counting this as a full season. Williams did not debut the following year (1953) until August. He appeared in 37 games, but played an entire game only three times. Here are the facts: Ted Williams had three seasons in which he finished with an American League-leading OBP over .500. He also had full-season OBPs of .499, .499, .497, .497, and .490.

August 7, 2018

O'Brien Expresses Amazement At Something That Is Completely Mundane, Thus Conveying The Idea That Fans Should Be Similarly Impressed

O'Brien (B8): "That's the third time this season that J.D. Martinez has had a four-RBI game. It's the kind of thing that David Ortiz made his legend on."

O'Brien sounded very impressed with JDM's three four-RBI games. Indeed, he implied it was similar to the "legendary" hitting feats of David Ortiz. At the time O'Brien said this, there were at least 14 major league batters that season with four or more 4-RBI games (one more than Martinez). Trevor Story of the Rockies had knocked in four runs in a game seven times. Martinez finished 2018 with five games of 4+ RBI.

For the record, Ortiz had 66 games with 4+ RBI in 20 seasons. Martinez is in his ninth season and has 21 games. Ortiz had eight games in 2004, nine games in 2005, nine games in 2006, five games in 2007, and five games in 2008. Also, shouldn't O'Brien know that David Ortiz is legendary, not because of high-RBI games, but because of his numerous clutch hits (the two most famous hits, in the 2004 ALCS, drove in two and one run, respectively)?

September 24, 2018

O'Brien Claims The Dodgers Won "A Lot" Of 1-0 Games With Davey Lopes Stealing Second Base And Scoring The Only Run. ... The Actual Number Of Times This Happened In 10 Years? Zee-ro.

O'Brien (B4): "The Dodgers won a lot of 1-0 games because he'd get on, steal a base, and someone would drive him in with a sac fly."

Lopes played for the Dodgers for 10 years (1972-81). During those seasons, the Dodgers won 21 games by a 1-0 score. Lopes scored the game's only run four times and in only one of those four games did he even attempt to steal a base. (He was thrown out, but ruled safe on an error.) Also, he had no steals in 15 of those 21 games.

The Dodgers never won a game in which Lopes stole second and scored the game's only run - on a sac fly or anything else.

Here is another example of "a lot" in a sentence: "When Dave O'Brien talks about baseball history, he is accurate 'a lot' of the time."