As we approach the end of the baseball season this year, the results of the playoffs in the National League, especially, have been nothing short of amazing. When one recalls how last year, the Los Angeles Dodgers thrashed the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series (NLCS) 4 to 0, the odds makers did not give the Brewers much of a chance this year against the Dodgers, who already had won two consecutive World Series. In fact, as I watched the playoffs unwind between these two teams this year, I noticed that the Dodgers were favored to win each game no matter whether they were playing away or at home. Of course, the series is over, and we now know the Brewers did onto the Dodgers what the Dodgers had done to them last year. The Brewers went on to beat the Dodgers in 4 consecutive games.
There were a number of unpredictable results occurring in this series that made it that much more exciting to watch. To start, based on estimates derived from the pre-playoffs betting market the odds of the Brewers winning the series were about 42 to 43%. However, the Brewers winning the series 4 to 0, as they did, was 1 chance in 21, meaning if you bet a $100 on the Brewers winning 4 straight games, you would have won $2100.
Perhaps the turning point of the Dodger-Brewer series was in the 2nd game when Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the ace pitcher for the Dodgers and star of last year’s World Series, faced Jake Bauer in the 3rd inning. Bauer refused to be disposed of by Yamamoto, and after being served 12 pitches finally walked. Immediately after, with bases loaded, Christian Yelich batted two men in with a single giving the Brewers a 3 to 2 lead that resulted in the early departure of Yamamoto in the 3rd inning. One interesting point to make is the Dodgers led every game of the series at some point, yet never won a game. In the 4th game, with the Brewers ahead in the series, 3 — 0, the Dodgers quickly rallied for 4 runs in the 2nd inning, capped by a three-run home run by Shohei Ohtani. But in the later innings of the game, the Brewers whittled away the Dodger lead finally passing it and winning the final game of the series 6 — 4.
Given the history of 3 — 0 leads in series that require the best of 4 out of 7 games to win it, one should not be surprised that the Dodgers lost this last game. Since recording these series back in 1903, there have been a total of 43 series where one team held a 3 to 0 lead over the other. Of those 43 series, 31 ended in a 4 — 0 sweep or 72%; 6 series ended 4 –1; 4 series ended 4 –2; 1 series ended 4 — 3 with the leading team still winning (2020 series between Houston and Tampa Bay in which Tampa Bay won in the 7th game); 1 series ended 4 –3 with the trailing team, the Boston Red Sox, being the only team to make this comeback in major league baseball history in 2004 when they beat the New York Yankees.
Back in 2004, I realized that after the Red Sox had won the 5th and 6th games in Fenway Park, given the low likelihood of that happening in playoffs or World Series, I became quite optimistic when they traveled to New York: The Red Sox won the last 2 games and the American League Championship Series. Although I am a Red Sox and not a Dodger fan, I always will hold a good feeling toward Dave Roberts, the Dodger coach, who in the bottom of the 9th inning, with the Red Sox trailing the Yankees 4 – 3, stole second base and later scored to tie the game. The Red Sox eventually won that game in the 12th inning 6 – 4 on a walk off home run by David Ortiz.
To conclude, it does not augur well if a team falls behind in a playoff or World Series 3 – 0. Of the 31 series in which one club is leading the other club 3 – 0, the Red Sox are the only team to have come back to win that series.
