Bottom line: Five teams across three leagues are losing far more often than their underlying numbers say they should be.
As of September 28, 2026, the San Francisco Giants, Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Angels, Valencia, and Venezia share one common humiliation across continents and sports. They are all losing. A lot. But the underlying numbers, the run differentials and expected goals models that typically predict outcomes with boring reliability, suggest each of them deserves better. The gap between what these teams have earned and what they have received is, in every case, striking enough to warrant a closer look. These are the five highest negative scores on our proprietary luck index, a composite metric built from Pythagorean expectation in baseball and expected-points models in football, designed to isolate finishing variance from structural quality.
Some people call it a luck score. We call it the weekly receipt.
1. San Francisco Giants - MLB
The Giants sit at 65-97 with an MLB luck index of -66, the worst mark in world sport this week. Per Baseball Savant data, their Pythagorean win-loss record, calculated from runs scored and runs allowed, projects roughly 72 wins. That is not good. But it is seven wins better than reality, a gap wide enough to represent the difference between historically awful and merely forgettable.
San Francisco's problem has been timing. They have scored runs, just not when it mattered. Their record in one-run games has been dismal, and their bullpen, while league-average by ERA in low-leverage spots, has cratered in high-leverage situations. The runs are there. The wins are not.
Seven phantom wins might not sound like much. It is the difference between picking fifth in the draft and picking twelfth.
2. Detroit Tigers - MLB
Detroit is the most fascinating case on this list. At 76-86, the Tigers look like a team that simply fell short of contention. Their Pythagorean record tells a radically different story: approximately 89 wins, which would have them in the thick of the Wild Card race.
A 13-win gap is enormous. It is the kind of variance that shows up maybe once or twice per MLB season, and it has effectively erased what should have been a playoff-caliber year. Detroit's run differential has been that of a solid, above-average club all season. Their actual record is that of a team cleaning out lockers in late September.
The culprit, again, is one-run games and extra innings. The Tigers' record in contests decided by two runs or fewer is well below .500, a domain where sequencing and bullpen timing overwhelm talent.
3. Los Angeles Angels - MLB
The Angels carry a luck index of -51 and a 62-100 record that places them among baseball's worst. Their Pythagorean expectation of roughly 71 wins does not redeem them exactly, but it does separate them from the truly hopeless. Nine wins is a meaningful gap.
Los Angeles has been outscored, yes, but not by the margins their record implies. Their season has been defined by a specific, painful pattern: narrow losses. A team can only absorb so many of those before the record starts to look like something structural rather than something random.
4. Valencia - La Liga
Europe's football seasons are young, which makes early-season expected-goals luck especially volatile. Still, Valencia's numbers are hard to ignore. Through seven La Liga matches, they have 4 points from a 1W-1D-5L record. According to FBref data, their expected points tally sits at 6.7, nearly three points higher.
In a relegation fight, 2.7 missing points across seven matches is significant. Valencia have created chances and limited opponents to reasonable xG totals. The finishing, on both ends, has simply not broken their way.
5. Venezia - Serie A
Zero points from five matches is bleak. Zero points when your expected-points model reads 4.9 is something else entirely. Venezia's luck index of -22 reflects a team that has been competitive in underlying metrics while having absolutely nothing to show for it.
Five losses, no draws, no wins. The xG margins suggest at least one win and a draw should have materialized by now. Instead, Venezia sit bottom of Serie A with a perfect losing record.
The Common Thread
Across all five teams, the pattern is the same: close-game variance. None of these clubs are dominant. But all of them are losing tight contests at rates that their underlying production does not support. In baseball, it is one-run games. In football, it is expected-goals finishing luck. The sport changes. The math does not.
