The World Series between the Blue Jays and Dodgers will conclude in dramatic fashion with a winner-take-all Game 7 Friday night.
Los Angeles had their backs against the wall as they traveled to Toronto facing elimination, but pulled off an epic win in Game 6 after a dramatic ninth inning to force the decider. Rogers Centre will play host to the final game of Major League Baseball’s season, giving the Jays home-field advantage as the franchise tries to secure its first title since 1993.
MLB.com’s Sarah Langs dove into postseason history to find how teams in the Blue Jays and Dodgers’ positions have fared based on prior results. According to her research, teams playing any winner-take-all game in their home park are 69–67, including 31–29 in a best-of-seven series. That gives an ever so slight edge to Toronto, but L.A. certainly secured the momentum in the series by taking Game 6 on the road.
In best-of-seven series that follow the current 2-3-2 format, teams that have won Game 6 to force a Game 7 ended up winning the series 35 of 56 times (62.5%), also according to Langs. When the Game 6 winner has forced a Game 7 on the road, that road team has won the series 14 of 22 times (63.6%).
Langs’s always useful findings indicate the Blue Jays get a small bump for playing at their home park, but the Dodgers get a slightly bigger bump for taking Game 6, especially doing so on the road. If this year’s Fall Classic has taught us anything, it’s that Game 7 could go either way. Baseball fans are certainly in for a treat with the last game of the season as Shohei Ohtani and Max Scherzer toe the rubber for their respective sides.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as What Playoff History Says About Teams in Blue Jays, Dodgers' Positions in World Series Game 7.
