How many MLB teams have blown a 2-0 World Series lead?

The Los Angeles Dodgers are halfway to a Hollywood ending, having taken each of the first two games of the World Series over the New York Yankees. Freddie Freeman's dramatic walk-off grand slam in Game 1 took the wind out of New York's sails, while Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched L.A. to another win in Game 2. Just about everything has gone the Dodgers' way so far: They've been the better, crisper team, doing all the little things it takes to win in October while the Yankees (and their biggest star in particular) can't stop shooting themselves in the foot. Now, what was billed as the World Series of the century might be over before it even got started.

The Yankees aren't to be counted out just yet. The scene shifts to Yankee Stadium for Game 3 on Monday night, where a raucous crowd could be just the thing New York needs to pick themselves up off the deck. But the odds certainly aren't in their favor, and they're going to have to overcome a whole lot of history to capture title No. 28.

For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work onThe Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot, our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop between now and the MLB offseason.

How many teams have blown a 2-0 series lead in the MLB playoffs?

92 teams have taken a 2-0 lead in a best-of-seven postseason series. 77 of those teams went on to win that series — roughly 84 percent of the time. The Dodgers themselves haven't blown a 2-0 lead in almost forty years, when Tommy Lasorda's crew won the first two games of the 1985 NLCS against the St. Louis Cardinals only to drop the next four in a row and lose in six.

A Yankees rally isn't very likely, but it's also not out of the realm of possibility. And New York only has to look to 2023 for inspiration: The most recent team to erase a 2-0 deficit was the Arizona Diamondbacks, who came back to shock the Philadelphia Phillies in last year's NLCS. As for the last time the Yankees pulled off the feat, well, you have to go all the way back to the start of the team's dynasty in the 1990s.

How many teams have blown a 2-0 series lead in the World Series?

If you're looking for some good news as a Yankees fan, here's some: Only 10 teams in baseball history have erased a 2-0 series deficit to win the World Series, but four of those 10 were the Yankees — and four of the 10 involved this very matchup. New York also did it most recently, turning the tide in Atlanta en route to shocking the Braves en route to winning the 1996 World Series.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for the most common matchup in World Series history, Dodgers-Yankees is all over this list. The Dodgers stormed back to win four games in a row in the 1981 Fall Classic, exacting some revenge for New York pulling the same trick three years earlier. A 2-0 lead also got erased twice in the two teams' epic battles during the 1950s, with the then-Brooklyn Dodgers finally getting over the hump in Game 7 in 1955 before the Yankees reclaimed the throne in '56.

With so much talent up and down the roster (and Shohei Ohtani seemingly ready to go despite suffering a shoulder injury in Game 2), the Dodgers have to feel awfully good about capturing their first full-season championship since 1988. But if this rivalry has taught us anything over the years, it's that anything is possible.