Down 3-1 in World Series, Diamondbacks could join rare group to overcome deficit
The quiet clubhouse environment following Game 4 was a sobering reminder that the Arizona Diamondbacks are one game away from the end of the season.
All the times the DBacks have slithered out of rocky places this season point to one last, major effort from the team now that the Texas Rangers are up 3-1 in the World Series.
“We’ve had better days. When you’re down 1-3 like we are, you can understand the mood of the locker room right now. All you can do is try to win every game now," designated hitter Tommy Pham said after Tuesday's 11-7 loss that really wasn't that close.
Coming back from a 3-1 deficit is very difficult, but it’s not impossible.
In 118 previous World Series, teams have been down 3-1 47 times. Of those clubs, just six came all the way back to win the title. Only one team in the 21st century was able to do it — the Chicago Cubs in 2016. Before that? The 1985 Kansas City Royals.
During the 2016 World Series, Cleveland missed three chances to close the series. On the road, the Cubs won handily in Game 6 with a 9-3 victory to set up Game 7. Highlighted by Ben Zobrist’s RBI double, the Cubs edged an 8-7 win in 10 innings for the title.
The DBacks aren’t strangers to defying the odds in this postseason. In the NLCS, the DBacks went down 2-0 following two massive losses to the Philadelphia Phillies and won four of the next five games. Just 16% of teams down 2-0 in a seven-game postseason series have come back to win.
"What we can take from that the most is just be ourselves," first baseman Christian Walker said. "We didn’t try to do anything extra. We relied on each other and trusted each other. Looking around this clubhouse, this is the group of guys I want to go to war with.”
Winning the next three means the DBacks have to break the Rangers' dominant run on the road. After Tuesday's win, the Rangers have now run off 10 consecutive road playoff wins. In those 10 games, the offense has totaled 66 runs.
In Arlington, Texas, it’s a more level playing field. The Rangers have gone 2-4 at home and have scored 26 runs there, which accounts for 28.2% of its offense this postseason.
However, there’s the issue of getting to Game 6. For the first time this postseason, the Rangers have home-field advantage and the luxury of three road games in the middle of the series. So far, it’s played out well after rallying to take the first game of the series.
"This is where we want to be. It's a one-game-at-a-time mentality," Rangers second baseman Marcus Semien said. "We get some rest tonight, and understand that we need to focus on what we need to do to win the ball game, and that's all there is to it. We win the ball game, we get a ring, of course. But you need to think about the process of how to get that done — good defense, good pitching, timely hitting, two-out RBIs. Those things that we did the last two nights we need to continue.”
For the DBacks, if the series were to go to Game 6, they have a bit of a statistical edge with their 8-3 record on the road, including two straight wins in Philadelphia in a do-or-die situation.
There are ghosts of the past that the Rangers will have to confront moving forward. During the 2011 World Series, the Rangers were one strike away from winning three times during Game 6 against the St. Louis Cardinals. Instead of hoisting the first championship trophy in franchise history, that game was memorialized by David Freese’s heroics.
Rangers manager Bruce Bochy was on the other side of when the Rangers were in the World Series in 2010, but his three titles with the San Francisco Giants show that he isn’t new to being one win away.
“The only thing I'm thinking tomorrow, we've got to come out and play our best game. I don't mean to cliché that, but it is,” Bochy said. “That's how you look at it. You don't look where you're at. Your focus has to be on tomorrow's game, going out there, doing all you can to win a ball game. That's where we have to be thinking. That's where our minds have to be.”
World Series teams that escaped 3-1 holes
Along with the 2016 Cubs:
1985 Kansas City Royals, over St. Louis Cardinals: This series will be remembered for all time by a blown umpire's call in Game 6 that allowed the Royals to force Game 7.
1979 Pittsburgh Pirates, over Baltimore Orioles: These Pirates of "We Are Family" fame were led by Willie "Pops" Stargell, who hit .400 with three homers and was the first player to win MVP honors in the regular season (shared with Keith Hernandez), NLCS and World Series in the same year.
1968 Detroit Tigers, over St. Louis Cardinals: This Tigers team had a 31-game winner in Denny McLain, who won Game 6, but it was his sidekick, Mickey Lolich, who won Games 5 and 7.
1958 New York Yankees, over Milwaukee Braves: The Braves won the previous World Series over the Yankees behind Warren Spahn and Lew Burdette, but this year the Yankees climbed out of their 3-1 hole by beating Burdette twice and Spahn once in the final three games.
1925 Pittsburgh Pirates, over Washington Senators: The Pirates had to beat the legendary Walter Johnson to take Game 7, and did so in rainy, foggy conditions in Pittsburgh, erasing a 4-0 deficit against Johnson to boot.
—Mark Faller
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Diamondbacks could join rare group to overcome 3-1 World Series deficit
