This is called “winning dirty”. Among sports teams, it is considered to be tantamount to cheating by sly methods to gain victory. The Chicago White Sox team was famous (or notorious) for exploiting these tactics to fight their way to prominence, and among Chicago fans, much greater support.
The rest of the league pretty much despised the White Sox, though.
Why am I not surprised?
Sometimes victories are pyrrhic. I remember GHW Bush basically dismissing the conservatives in the party (associating with them just wouldn’t do at the country club) and then begging for our support in 1992. Well, there was an alternative, Ross Perot as crazy as he was, and he got 20 percent of the vote while Bush ended up losing with 37 percent.