Except about the same do you mean actually quite far behind? Itzy have like 660,000-ish sales from 2021 releases, while TWICE have about 730,000-ish before the release of Formula of Love, when it drops TWICE will likely have around 1.2 million sales from 2021 releases, ITZY's numbers will bump also when their new Japan compilation drops, likely only around 20,000 or so. But overall by Dec 11 TWICE will likely have about 500,000 more sales than Itzy.
Alcohol Free also did better than Loco or Mafia in Korea too. TWICE lead on Apple Music and showed both better peaks and longevity. They lead on Spotify too in peaks, ML's and streams. AF has 85m to Mafia's 89.9m, while The Feels has 46m to Loco's 37m. Both Itzy songs had head starts, Mafia by 2 months. TWICE got 1.2 billion streams on Spotify in 2021 so far, Itzy received just 460 million.
TWICE charted in the UK and the US official charts hot 100, Itzy did not. They charted 2 songs inside the Japan Hot 100 top 10 and 1 album in the Billboard 200 top 10, Itzy had none.
Youtube is to no one surprise a similar tale with TWICE leading. The Feels has 103m views and Alcohol Free has 187m compared to Loco at 89 and Mafia at 175m, again both Itzy songs had been released earlier and still are behind. TWICE last 12 months views total 3.62 billion(2.1b in '21) while Itzy pulled 1.48 billion(589m in '21).
The judges may make the decision sure, but based on overall metrics TWICE is the only one here who deserves the win. It's just not reasonable to compare.