The Greatest Comebacks in Baseball History

Baseball doesn't have a clock. Which means it never ends — until the last out, the game is still in play. These are the times that truth actually mattered.

No sport bends reality quite like baseball. A 7-0 deficit in the eighth inning is survivable. An 0-3 series hole has been climbed out of. A 19-31 record in late May has not prevented a team from lifting the Commissioner's Trophy in October. What follows are the times the sport made you believe — and then proved you were right to.

1. 2004 ALCS: Red Sox Erase a 3-0 Series Deficit Against the Yankees

No team in the history of professional baseball had ever come back from a 3-0 series deficit to win a playoff series. The Boston Red Sox did it against the New York Yankees — their rival across 86 years of heartbreak — in October 2004. It is the greatest comeback in baseball history, and it isn't particularly close.

After losing Games 1, 2, and 3 (the last by a score of 19-8), the Red Sox won Game 4 in extra innings on a David Ortiz walk-off home run. They won Game 5 on another Ortiz walk-off, this one a single in the 14th inning after a Mariano Rivera blown save. They won Game 6 when Curt Schilling pitched with a sutured tendon bleeding through his sock — the bloody sock, broadcast in close-up to a nation — and they won Game 7 at Yankee Stadium, 10-3, with Derek Lowe on the mound and nobody able to believe what they were watching.

Then they swept the Cardinals in four games to win the World Series. The sweep clincher — Red Sox 2004 World Series Game 4 — is in the Field & Ink catalog.

2. 2011 Rays · Game 162: Down 7-0 in the Eighth Inning

This one happened in a single game, not a series — which makes it, in some ways, harder to process. The Tampa Bay Rays entered September 2011 nine games out of the Wild Card. They went 17-10 in September, including a rally for the ages on the final day of the season.

On September 28, with the Rays trailing the Red Sox 7-0 in the eighth inning, Evan Longoria hit a two-run home run. Then, as the Rays mounted their rally, the Red Sox — needing only a tie to clinch — lost in Baltimore on a walk-off home run by Robert Andino in the ninth. The Rays tied it, won in extras, and clinched the Wild Card. It happened across two stadiums in real time, on the last night of the regular season. It is called the Miracle at the Trop. The Rays' other greatest night — 2008 ALCS Game 7 — is also in the catalog.

3. 2019 Nationals: 19 Wins and 31 Losses by the End of May

At the end of May 2019, the Washington Nationals were 19-31. Their season looked finished before summer began. Two players — Patrick Corbin, Max Scherzer — made the All-Star team, but the team around them couldn't hold leads. Nobody was predicting a World Series run. Nobody credible, anyway.

What followed was one of the most improbable runs in baseball's post-season history. The Nationals went 74-38 the rest of the way, reached the Wild Card game, won it on a Howie Kendrick grand slam in extra innings, dispatched the Dodgers in five games, sent the Cardinals home in four — and then went to Houston and beat the Astros in seven games, winning every road game in the series, including the decisive Game 7 at Minute Maid Park. That Game 7 — Washington's first World Series title — is in the Field & Ink catalog.

4. 2016 Cubs: Down 3-1 in the World Series

The Cubs had not won a World Series since 1908. When they fell behind the Cleveland Indians three games to one in the 2016 Fall Classic, it felt less like a deficit and more like evidence that the universe had decided. Then they won three consecutive games, the last of them — Game 7 — going to extra innings at Progressive Field after the Indians tied it in the ninth off Aroldis Chapman.

During the rain delay before the tenth inning, Jason Heyward delivered a speech in the dugout that has become part of baseball mythology. Kyle Schwarber, who hadn't played since April, appeared as a DH. Ben Zobrist lined a double down the left-field line to score the go-ahead run. The Cubs won 8-7. One hundred and eight years ended, on a Tuesday night in Cleveland, in extra innings, in the rain. Cubs 2016 World Series Game 7 is in the Field & Ink catalog.

5. 2001 Diamondbacks: Rallying Off Rivera in the Ninth

Nobody in 2001 thought you could beat Mariano Rivera in a close game in November. Rivera had blown one save opportunity in the previous three postseasons. He was the automatic closer of the Yankee dynasty, and in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series — Arizona's first World Series appearance — he was pitching the eighth inning with the Yankees up 2-1.

Then he threw a bunt single back to himself. Then a throwing error. Then pinch-hitter Jay Bell scored to tie it. Then Luis Gonzalez — who had hit 57 home runs that season but had never touched Rivera like this — lined a walk-off single over the drawn-in infield to win the World Series for the Diamondbacks. Rivera's face, frozen in the replay, is one of the most famous images in the sport's modern history. Arizona 2001 World Series Game 7 is in the catalog.

6. 1995 Mariners: From Elimination to Legend

In late August 1995, the Seattle Mariners were 13 games back in the AL West and looking at the end of baseball in the city — the Kingdome was aging, the team had never made the playoffs, and the stadium measures were failing at the ballot box. What followed was one of the most dramatic second-half runs in American League history.

The Mariners won the division, beat the Yankees in the ALDS in five games, and did it on Edgar Martinez's double in the 11th inning of Game 5 — the ball that stayed fair, that sent Ken Griffey Jr. home from first base, that the whole region stopped breathing for. "The Double" didn't win a championship. It saved baseball in Seattle. Mariners 1995 ALDS Game 5 is in the catalog.

7. 1997 Marlins: The Expansion Team World Series

The Florida Marlins were five years old when they won the 1997 World Series. They were also the only team in baseball history to never trail in a World Series Game 7 until the ninth inning — and then come back to win it anyway. Tony Fernandez's error in the eighth had given the Cleveland Indians the lead. Moises Alou drove in the tying run. Edgar Renteria singled home Craig Counsell in the 11th.

The Marlins won 3-2. They were an expansion franchise that had existed since 1993. No championship in professional sports had ever felt more out of nowhere — and none of it would have happened without that bottom of the ninth. Marlins 1997 World Series Game 7 is in the catalog.

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