The Giants and Dodgers can’t settle their National League Division Series tonight, but history suggests Game 3 at Chavez Ravine will go a long way in determining which rival’s World Series pursuit ultimately will continue.
Game 3 winners have gone on to capture the best-of-five games NLDS a whopping 71 percent of the time, including the Giants in 2010 and 2012, the first two of their three World Series-winning runs.
“Yeah, huge game, obviously,” Giants Game 3 starting pitcher Alex Wood said Sunday. “This is what you play for.”
The teams split the first two games of the first-ever playoff meeting of the modern era in San Francisco, the Giants winning 4-0 in Game 1 on Friday night and the Dodgers taking Game 2 by a 9-2 score on Saturday.
Now it’s as simple as whoever gets two more wins will face either the Atlanta Braves or the Milwaukee Brewers for the National League pennant. The Braves won Game 3 in that series earlier Monday to take a 2-1 lead.
The Dodgers have momentum coming off a lopsided win, two straight home games (where they have won 16 straight) and Cy Young candidate Max Scherzer on the mound. The Giants counter with a veteran starter of their own and a resilient team that not only had the best regular-season record in the majors, but was the best in baseball in games following a loss (going 38-17) and went 6-4 at Dodger Stadium.
“We’re still feeling good about ourselves,” Giants infielder Wilmer Flores said following the Game 2 loss. “We just got to go out there and get ’em. I mean, we lost one game. We got two more in Los Angeles.”
The question is whether there will be a deciding Game 5 in San Francisco on Thursday night. Only 12 of the 52 previous NLDS played since the round was added in 1995 have gone the full five games.
Not surprisingly, Game 3 has often been the pivotal moment in short playoff series.
Of the 52 NLDS played before this year, 37 of the eventual series winners took Game 3.
Of course, that includes three-game sweeps (there have been 20 of those), but 11 times the Game 3 winner closed out the series in Game 4, including San Francisco’s first World Series champion team in 2010 against the Braves.
The 2000 and 2003 Giants teams saw their seasons end with Game 3 and Game 4 NLDS losses. Even more painful, those series against the Mets and Marlins, respectively, were lost after the Giants won the opening game in each.
The Giants’ 2012 World Series team won the final three games of the NLDS against the Reds — but it all started with a Game 3 win.