The rule is that anything can happen in a short series, and it really can.
That’s why Commissioner Bud Selig has opposed (so far) the preference of John Schuerholz and some other general managers to extend the first round of the playoffs to best-of-seven, like other postseason series. He likes the drama, the action, that comes with best-of-five.
Before the Boston Red Sox stormed back against the New York Yankees in 2004, no team ever had recovered from a 3-0 deficit in a best-of-seven series. But an 0-2 hole in a best-of-five — the one the Cubs find themselves in against Arizona — hasn’t necessarily been the end of the road.
In the last 12 years, four teams have advanced to the championship series after losing the first two games of the division series.
Cubs manager Lou Piniella knows firsthand that it can be done because his 1995 Seattle Mariners recovered from that deficit against the New York Yankees.
It also has been done by Boston over Cleveland in 1999, the Yankees against Oakland in 2001 — when they won Game 3 1-0 on Derek Jeter’s improvised option pitch to home plate — and Boston over Oakland in 2003.
In three of those four comebacks, the team that jumped to the 2-0 lead was opening at home and the series swung back around with the third and fourth games played in the other park. That’s an encouraging sign for the Cubs.
Another possibly encouraging precedent involves Piniella’s decision to use Carlos Zambrano on short rest Sunday, assuming the series is extended to a Game 4.
Two of those four fairly recent comebacks were by managers using starters on short rest, although in the case of the ’99 Red Sox, Jimy Williams’ use of Bret Saberhagen on three days’ rest in Game 5 was offset by Mike Hargrove’s use of a three-man rotation, which meant he had Bartolo Colon and Charles Nagy working on short rest.
Piniella might have engineered the all-time best-of-five fire drill in that 1995 series against the Yankees.
Seattle entered the series with no rest, having had to pitch ace Randy Johnson on Monday in a one-game playoff against the Angels for the American League West title.
Johnson was 18-2 that year, but the Mariners didn’t have anybody else with even 11 victories.
Piniella used Chris Bosio and Andy Benes to start Games 1 and 2, then brought them back on short rest to start Games 4 and 5. The Mariners hit their way to 7-4, 11-6 and 6-5 victories, the last in 11 innings.
Major League Baseball also used a best-of-five format for the championship series from 1969 through ’84. Including those series, seven of 49 teams have recovered from 2-0 deficits to advance. That includes San Diego over the Cubs in ’84.
Based on that history alone, the Cubs have a 1-in-7 chance of digging out of their hole. There’s a better-than-even chance the Diamondbacks will finish off the sweep, however, as 30 of the 49 2-0 leads were converted into sweeps.
———-
progers@tribune.com
