World Series Watch, Game 2: Updated Predictions

When I wrote a piece outlining numberFire's World Series Predictions yesterday, I didn't include Pablo Sandoval as a potential MVP candidate for the Giants. That seems to have been a mistake. A horrible, tragic mistake.

Three home runs later, and the Giants hold a 1-0 series lead, with Justin Verlander already knocked out of the rotation for another couple of games. It should be easy sailing for the Tigers from here, right? Well, not so fast.

The New Projections, Pre-Game 2

After game 1, it is indeed the Giants who now have the best shot of winning this series. But it's not by much. The Game 1 win at home was not wholly unexpected, but our model says the Giants may have a tougher time holding that lead than some fans may expect. The Giants now have a 56.83% chance of winning, while the Tigers lag behind with a 43.17% chance.

But still, that gives the Tigers a halfway decent shot. Taking Game 2 against Madison Bumgarner, one of our dark horse World Series MVP candidates, would go a long way towards getting that expected winning percentage back above 50%.

And the length of the series?

The Giants should now be expected to win the series in 5.80 games, slightly down from yesterday's 5.98 games prediction but not quite to "This could end in Detroit!" levels quite yet.

Meanwhile, if the Tigers were to come back and win, this series would take a projected 6.19 games. The dreams of winning it in Detroit may be close to over, but at this point, I think Tigers fans would be quite happy with a San Francisco party after Game 6 or Game 7.

The overall expected length of the series now sits at 5.97 games, and a San Francisco victory in six now has the best odds of any single outcome.