At the World Series Tonight

The excitement builds! Game 6 of the World Series will be played in the Bronx tonight.

By a very small percentage, cool weather might favor a quick team that depends on a lot of base hits rather than home runs. Neither the Yankees or the Phillies fit that bill though, so the existing chilly conditions shouldn't give either team an edge.

Stepping to the plate this evening will be relatively tranquil weather. Clouds will slide in, but no rain is expected for the entirety of the game. The wind will not be a player. When the first pitch is thrown, the temperature should stand at 46 degrees.

If a game 7 is needed, Thursday evening will be brisk and cold with a few sprinkles and perhaps even a few wet snowflakes. Temperatures Thursday evening will be in the low 40s; winds will be out of the northwest at 15-20 mph.

Don't forget that the season change makes the game of baseball much different in the postseason.

Besides the pitchers playing repeat games on short rest, the cooler weather affects how the ball travels and players perform.

According to AccuWeather.com meteorologists, cold air is more dense than warm air because the air contains more molecules.

Clay Davenport of Baseball Prospectus adds that cool weather in general favors the pitcher, as a pitched ball such as a curveball will have more movement as it travels through the dense air to the catcher's mitt, making it harder for a batter to hit.

Chris Constancio of The Hardball Times, an online baseball magazine, sampled 2,000 major league baseball games during the 2005-2006 season and concluded that pitchers strike out a higher proportion of batters in colder weather, although pitchers tend to have more control issues, walking more batters overall.

Likewise, once the ball is hit, the dense, cold air makes it harder for the ball to travel a long distance. Davenport also observed that the home run rate drops 17 percent in games when the temperature is less than 60 degrees, as many home runs are fly outs in the cold.