The Dodgers will take their first swing at an almost impossible October climb on Thursday, sending Tyler Glasnow to the mound in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series against Milwaukee. Los Angeles, chasing a third straight World Series title, trails the Brewers 3-0 after having swept Milwaukee in last year’s NLCS.
There is not much room in postseason history for optimism once a best-of-seven series reaches that point. Of the 43 major league clubs to open a 3-0 lead in an AL or NL series, 31 completed sweeps and six more wrapped things up in Game 5. Four trailing teams have won Games 4 and 5 to extend the fight to a sixth game, two have made it all the way to Game 7, and only one has turned the deficit into a series victory.
That lone breakthrough belongs to the 2004 Red Sox, whose comeback against the Yankees became part of the permanent October conversation in Boston. The Dodgers now need to begin their own push with Glasnow, knowing every outing from here on out has to be a season-saver.
Boston’s impossible October
The Red Sox had spent decades carrying the weight of Babe Ruth’s sale to the Yankees after the 1919 season and an 86-year championship drought. Their loss to New York in the 2003 ALCS had made matters worse: Boston surrendered a 5-2 eighth-inning lead in Game 7 before Aaron Boone’s 11th-inning walk-off homer off Tim Wakefield ended the series.
The 2004 rematch initially looked even more one-sided. New York won the first three games and entered the ninth inning of Game 4 one run ahead with Mariano Rivera on the mound. Kevin Millar opened the inning with a walk, Dave Roberts entered as a pinch-runner and stole second, and Bill Mueller brought him home with a single through the middle to tie it.
David Ortiz then delivered a two-run, extra-inning homer off Paul Quantrill to keep Boston alive. Ortiz supplied another walk-off hit the next night as the Red Sox rallied again in extra innings, sending the series back to Yankee Stadium.
Curt Schilling carried a badly injured right ankle into Game 6. He had torn the tendon sheath during the AL Division Series against the Angels and underwent a procedure designed to stabilize the ankle before taking the ball in the Bronx. His white sock became blood-stained during the start, but Schilling worked seven innings and allowed one run in Boston’s 4-2 victory.
In Game 7, Ortiz homered in the first inning and Johnny Damon broke things open with a grand slam in the second. Damon hit two home runs that night as Boston finished the first successful comeback from 3-0 down in a best-of-seven postseason series.
The Red Sox then swept St. Louis in the World Series, winning their first championship since 1918 and closing the book on the so-called Curse of the Bambino.
Houston’s 2020 push reached the final night
The closest recent club to matching Boston was the 2020 Astros. Tampa Bay had gone 40-20 to win the AL East, swept Toronto in the Wild Card Series and beat the Yankees in five games in the Division Series. Houston entered October at 29-31 but knocked out the Twins and Athletics to reach the ALCS.
With the pandemic forcing the entire series to Petco Park in San Diego, the Rays won the first three games. Houston answered with two one-run wins, including Carlos Correa’s walk-off homer in Game 5, then took Game 6 by a 7-4 score. The Astros scored seven runs on 11 hits while drawing nine walks, putting a historic seventh game within reach.
Tampa Bay stopped the charge early in Game 7. Randy Arozarena, later named ALCS MVP, hit a two-run homer in the first inning, while former Astro Charlie Morton covered 5 2/3 scoreless innings.
Houston made a late run. Correa’s two-run single in the eighth trimmed the Rays’ lead to 4-2 and brought the potential go-ahead run to the plate. Pete Fairbanks struck out Alex Bregman to end that inning, then worked a scoreless ninth to preserve Tampa Bay’s pennant.
Atlanta has seen both sides of the climb
The 1998 Braves had won a franchise-record 106 games and dispatched the Cubs in the NL Division Series, extending an era in which Atlanta seemed to be on the road to the World Series every fall. From 1991 through 1999, the Braves reached the Fall Classic five times and made the NLCS in each of the other three seasons.
San Diego had other plans in 1998. The Padres beat Atlanta’s marquee trio of John Smoltz, Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux across the first three games, including two games in Atlanta. Andy Ashby, Kevin Brown and Sterling Hitchcock kept the Braves quiet enough for San Diego to take command.
Atlanta stayed alive with a lopsided Game 4 victory, then erased a 4-2 Game 5 deficit when Michael Tucker hit a go-ahead three-run homer off Brown with one out in the eighth. Maddux came out of the bullpen in the ninth and earned the only save of his career.
The comeback ended in Game 6. Hitchcock threw five shutout innings, and the Padres scored five times against Glavine in the sixth. Hitchcock finished the series 2-0 with a 0.90 ERA in two starts and took home NLCS MVP honors.
A year later, Atlanta held a 3-0 NLCS lead over the Mets and had to withstand a New York push of its own. The final five games of that series were all decided by one run.
Game 5 lasted 5 hours and 46 minutes at Shea Stadium and ended with Robin Ventura’s celebrated grand-slam single in the 15th inning. Ventura drove a bases-loaded ball over the fence, but teammates mobbed him before he could round the bases, leaving the play officially recorded as a one-run single.
Game 6 in Atlanta brought another extra-inning fight. The Braves lost a 7-3 lead in the seventh, recovered from one-run deficits in both the eighth and 10th innings, and finally won the pennant in the 11th. Kenny Rogers walked Andruw Jones with the bases loaded, forcing home the deciding run.
That history offers the Dodgers a narrow but familiar path: win Thursday, then make the series uncomfortable. No club can erase a 3-0 hole in one night. It starts with one clean game from the starter, enough offense to extend the season, and a clubhouse willing to believe there is still another inning ahead.
