Over in the “Effectively Wild” Facebook group, there was this question posed:
Sam Gerweck
So I’ve been picking through games tonight on MLB.tv and saw that the (17-16) Tigers are playing the (17-20) Angels. 1/5 of the way through the season and there is a 4 games-played disparity between these teams. What is the largest games-played disparity that is possible/has happened?
Thanks to the gamelogs at Retrosheet, the answer turns out to be 15. But as this chart shows, that hasn’t happened since 1917. That 15-game difference, according to Baseball Almanac, was perhaps due to “America’s entry into WWI combined with an unusually wet spring to postpone forty-eight National League games in the first month.” The largest difference since 2000 is 7 games.
| Difference | Date | Vis | Vis Lg | Vis Gm # | Home | Home Lg | Home Gm # |
| 0 | 20161002 | HOU | AL | 162 | ANA | AL | 162 |
| 1 | 20161002 | CLE | AL | 161 | KCA | AL | 162 |
| 2 | 20160915 | PIT | NL | 145 | PHI | NL | 147 |
| 3 | 20160824 | HOU | AL | 127 | PIT | NL | 124 |
| 4 | 20160619 | TOR | AL | 72 | BAL | AL | 68 |
| 5 | 20150712 | TOR | AL | 91 | KCA | AL | 86 |
| 6 | 20150701 | KCA | AL | 75 | HOU | AL | 81 |
| 7 | 20000730 | NYA | AL | 100 | MIN | AL | 107 |
| 8 | 19970727 | OAK | AL | 106 | CLE | AL | 98 |
| 9 | 19980719 | NYA | AL | 92 | TOR | AL | 101 |
| 10 | 19820613 | MIN | AL | 62 | TEX | AL | 52 |
| 11 | 19790715 | SDN | NL | 96 | MON | NL | 85 |
| 12 | 19640524 | WS2 | AL | 40 | CHA | AL | 28 |
| 13 | 19740616 | SDN | NL | 68 | MON | NL | 55 |
| 14 | 19320712 | NY1 | NL | 75 | CIN | NL | 89 |
| 15 | 19170729 | PHI | NL | 84 | CIN | NL | 99 |