Los Angeles Dodgers • Atlanta Braves • National League Championship Series

History isn’t totally against the Dodgers Friday night … just mostly

The 3-1 series deficit L.A. faces against Atlanta has been overcome, but not very often

Worl Series MVP Josh Beckett hands an autographed baseball from his car to a fan Sunday, Oct. 26, 2003, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. after the team arrived home from New York one day after winning the World Series. (AP Photo/Rick Silva)

The Dodgers face an elimination game tonight, but their fans should realize history is not totally against them.

(Of course, it would help if they still had Josh Beckett on their pitching staff. Stay with me, and it’ll become clear.)

In the history of baseball, there have been 13 comebacks from 3-1 deficits in best-of-seven series, similar to the one the Dodgers face against the Atlanta Braves in the National League Championship Series. Keep in mind, of course, that none of those series had the elements peculiar to this postseason, including neutral sites and series without off days to tax pitching staffs, as the Dodgers and Braves currently face in Arlington, Texas.

But consider, in the hours before Dustin May goes to the mound for the Dodgers and A.J. Minter starts as the Braves’ opener for a planned bullpen game, that there have been three such comebacks in the NLCS since it went to a seven-game format in 1985.

• Atlanta trailed St. Louis 3-1 in 1996. They won Game 5 in St. Louis 14-0 (a guy named John Smoltz pitched seven innings and got the win), then went back home and won 3-1 (behind Greg Maddux) and 15-0 (behind Tom Glavine). Moral: It helps to have three Hall of Fame pitchers in your rotation. (It didn’t help in the World Series, though; the Yankees beat them in six.)

• Florida trailed the Cubs 3-1 in 2003, and anyone familiar with the saga of Steve Bartman knows the Marlins came back and won that series at Wrigley Field, then went on to beat the Yankees in the World Series. Worth noting: The aforementioned Beckett pitched a complete game two-hit shutout in Game 5 for the Marlins, a day after they’d been pounded 8-3.

• And the Giants, in the midst of their run of three World Series championships in five years, were down 3-1 to the Cardinals in 2012 and won the last three games 5-0 in St. Louis (behind Barry Zito’s 7-2/3 innings) and 6-1 and 9-0 at home.

Beckett, who would end his career with the Dodgers and pitch a no-hitter in 2014, had a role in another critical Game 5. The Red Sox trailed Cleveland 3-1 in the 2007 American League Championship Series, but Beckett gave up five hits and struck out 11 in eight innings while his teammates knocked around CC Sabathia 7-1 in Cleveland. Then they won 12-2 and 11-2 in Fenway to wrap up that series and went on to sweep Colorado in the World Series.

There have been four such comebacks in the ALCS, and Boston was involved in two of the other three: 2004 and the historic rally from a 3-0 deficit against the Yankees, and 1986, when the Angels had them by the necks but Dave Henderson’s Game 5 home run off Donnie Moore at Anaheim Stadium turned that series around.

The other: 1985, when the Kansas City Royals were down 3-1 to Toronto and won three straight to get to the World Series against St. Louis. Then the Royals came back from another 3-1 deficit in the World Series, though Cardinal fans to this day blame Don Denkinger’s missed call on Jorge Orta’s grounder leading off the ninth, with Orta being called safe and starting a rally that enabled the Royals to stave off elimination, 2-1. The next night Bret Saberhagen blanked the Cardinals 11-0 to complete a second comeback in two weeks.

All in all, teams that rallied from 3-1 deficits to win in League Championship Series were 5-2 in the World Series.

The Royals’ ’85 triumph is one of six such comebacks in the World Series. The Cubs rallied from 3-1 against Cleveland in 2016, ending their curse and continuing the Indians’ drought. The Pirates did it against Baltimore in 1979. Detroit wiped out a 3-1 deficit against the Cardinals in 1968. The Yankees rallied from a 3-1 deficit to beat the Milwaukee Braves in 1958, and the Pittsburgh Pirates did it first against the Washington Senators in 1924.

But before we get carried away, here’s a reminder that the odds remain long. Throughout the game’s history, one team has gotten off to a 3-1 lead in 86 best-of-seven series, and that team has won the series 73 times, or 84.9 percent of the time.

In other words, the chance is slim, but it does exist. (That said, any way the Dodgers could sneak Beckett into uniform, at least, for Game 5?)

jalexander@scng.com

@Jim_Alexander on Twitter

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