Up 2-0 On Dodgers, History Heavily Favors Another Red Sox World Series Championship
BOSTON (CBS) -- The Boston Red Sox are halfway home to another World Series title.
The Red Sox took care of business at Fenway Park and own a 2-0 series lead, completely dominating the Los Angeles Dodgers in just about every way possible. The Sox offense has been relentless and taken advantage of every opportunity the Dodgers have given them, scoring nine of their 12 runs in the series with two outs. Boston's pitching has also been fantastic from start to finish, and any move Alex Cora makes seems to come up gold.
The series can flip quickly with the next three games in Los Angeles, and the saying goes that a series doesn't really start until the road team wins a game. But Boston is not your typical team by any stretch, a squad just as dominant on the road as they are at home. They're a perfect 5-0 on the road this postseason, having clinched both the ALDS and ALCS in hostile settings that really weren't very hostile. They went 51-30 away from Fenway Park during the regular season, which is more wins than the Dodgers had at Dodger Stadium, where they went 45-37.
As you can imagine, history and odds are on Boston's side. They're the 55th team to take a 2-0 lead in the World Series, and of the previous 54 teams to go up 2-0, 43 of them have gone on to win it all (79.6%). The last 10 teams to go up 2-0 in the Fall Classic, and 16 of the last 17, have hoisted a shiny trophy at the end of the season.
Of those 43 teams to win it all after going up 2-0, 24 of them have gone on to win Game 3. That includes the 2004 and 2007 championship Red Sox teams, both of whom swept their series.
The 2018 Red Sox are now the 39th team to hit the road with a 2-0 series lead. Of the previous 38 teams, they've won the World Series 31 times (81.6%). Each of the last 15 teams to go up 2-0 before going on the road have won it all. The last team to take a 2-0 World Series lead after two home games and lose the series was the 1981 Yankees, who lost the series in six games. They dropped four straight to, you guessed it, the Dodgers.
Those stats are pretty incredible, and bode well for Boston. But they aren't going to rely on something that has happened in the past, instead focused on what they need to accomplish to take their place in history.
"I mean, at least we know if things don't go well in L.A., we're coming back [home]. So that's good," Cora after Wednesday night's 8-4 win in Game 2.
Cora's team never looked too far ahead during the regular season or their last two playoff series, and they aren't about to start in the biggest series of them all. And really, we don't need to look back in time to feel good about Boston's odds of winning the series. Based on how they played in the first two games, and throughout their 108-win regular season, there's a really good chance that the Red Sox will have another commissioner's trophy in hand when they come back to Boston early next week.
