Dodger pitching has utterly dominated a Brewer offense that has looked jumpy, unprepared, and not ready for the big moment in the first two games of the National League Championship Series. If Milwaukee
is going to get this series back to Milwaukee, that offense will need to find itself in a hurry.
But let’s put aside the actual play on the field for a second and just look at the history of teams that have fallen behind 2-0 in a seven-game series. This has happened 93 times in the long history of baseball; 15 of those 93 teams, or 16%, have managed a comeback.
Not all comebacks are created equal, though. When you add the stipulation that the Brewers have lost the first two games as the home team, that list narrows to four—and really, one of those shouldn’t count. And most of these series are, at this point, a long time in the past. A quick rundown:
2020 NLCS: Dodgers def. Braves in seven
Los Angeles was technically the higher seed for this series and thus had “home-field advantage,” but in the 2020 COVID season, all seven games were played without crowds at Globe Life Stadium in Arlington, Texas. So, if you glance through history you might notice the Dodgers as the “home team,” but this shouldn’t count in this category. On the field, the Braves won the first two games, the Dodger offense exploded in game three, the Braves won big in game four, but the Dodgers locked in and won three straight to take the series.
1996 World Series: Yankees def. Braves in six
Yes, the Braves again. Atlanta, the defending champs, took the first two games against the young Yankees behind masterful pitching performances from John Smoltz and Greg Maddux. But when the series shifted to Atlanta, things changed, and after a 5-2 victory in game three, the Yankees won three straight squeakers: an 8-6 win in 10 innings in game four, a 1-0 win in game five, and a 3-2 victory back in New York for game six. Closer John Wetteland—not Mariano Rivera, who was a high-volume set-up man that season—won series MVP honors, the Yankees had their first World Series since 1978, and a dynasty was born.
1986 World Series: Mets def. Red Sox in seven
The Mets needed seven games and one of the most infamous plays of all time to pull this comeback off; they won game six when Mookie Wilson’s grounder trickled through Bill Buckner’s legs, and they won game seven with a balanced offensive attack and good bullpen work from Sid Fernandez and Jesse Orosco after a shaky start from our current series’ television analyst Ron Darling.
1985 World Series: Royals def. Cardinals in seven
The 1985 Royals are the only team in the history of baseball to overcome two 2-0 deficits in the same postseason. Without home-field advantage, they overcame a 2-0 deficit to the Toronto Blue Jays in the ALCS, and in the World Series, they did it again after dropping the first two games at home. Bret Saberhagen stopped the bleeding by throwing a complete game in a 6-1 victory in game three, and then turned himself into a postseason legend by throwing a five-hit, no-walk shutout in an easy 11-0 win in game seven.
Those are the only teams to win a best-of-seven series when they lost the first two games as the home team, and as you can see, it hasn’t really happened since 1996. There is one recent example of a road team pulling this off: the 2023 Diamondbacks fell behind 2-0 in the NLCS before winning four of the next five and making it to the World Series. Before that, you’re looking at the 2004 Red Sox, the only team to ever overcome a 3-0 deficit. All of the other examples of a team overcoming a 2-0 deficit to win a seven-game series happened between 1955 and 1985.
The numbers are against the Brewers, and it was always going to be an uphill climb against this Dodger team who, despite a mediocre-by-their-standards regular season, are absolutely the juggernauts we expected them to be before the season. It can be done, but it would be quite a story.
