The Cubs on Tuesday night beat those odds. The team down 3-2 and playing Game 6 on the road wins Game 6 just 44.7 percent of the time.Of teams down 3-2 in a best-of-seven and playing Games 6 and 7 on the road (again, this describes the 2016 Cubs), 21.3 percent went on to win the series.Stated another way, 22 of those 44 teams extended the series to at least six games.

Teams down 3-1 and playing Game 5 at home, as the Cubs did, have won Game 5 50 percent of the time.As mentioned, just 13.6 of teams (six out of 44) down 3-1 and playing Game 6 and 7 on the road came back from down 3-1.As noted, they're most of the way there.īased on that (fairly small) sample of teams faced with similar straits - i.e., being down 3-1 in a best-of-seven playoff matchup - here are the kind of historical odds the Cubs have faced along the way. That, of course, is what the Cubs are trying to do. More to the point, just six of 44 teams down 3-1 have come back to win the series while playing Games 6 and 7 on the road. So what does history say about such unlikely comeback journeys in a best-of-seven postseason series? Via the very excellent we learn that just 12 of 81 teams down 3-1 in a best-of-seven playoff series have come back to win said series. We also know that the Cubs won Games 5 and 6, so two-thirds of that comeback journey is complete. We've known since the outcome of Game 4 in Chicago that the Cubs would be tasked with coming back from down 3-1 against the Indians.

Cubs 2016 world series baseball