DYK: Facts and figures from NLCS Game 4
After four games, the National League Championship Series is all square. The Cubs and Dodgers have each won once at home and once on the road, splitting the first two games of the series at Wrigley Field and now the latest two at Dodger Stadium.
The Cubs routed the Dodgers in a 10-2 win in Game 4 on Wednesday to even the series and guarantee that the NLCS will end in their home ballpark, with a trip to the World Series on the line.
• NLCS Game 5: Today at 8 p.m. ET on FS1
Game 5 -- the final game at Chavez Ravine before the series returns to Wrigley Field for Game 6 and a potential Game 7 -- will be pivotal. But before the teams move on to the next game, as the American League champion Indians await the winner, here are the key facts and figures from Game 4 of the NLCS.
:: NLCS: Dodgers vs. Cubs coverage ::
• With the Cubs and Dodgers tied at two games apiece, Game 5 has the potential to swing the series. In best-of-seven LCS that have been tied 2-2, the team that wins Game 5 has gone on to win the series 12 of 15 times. In those situations, teams are 7-2 in the series when winning Game 5 at home, and 5-1 when winning on the road.
• The Cubs have been tied 2-2 in an NL Championship Series only once before -- in 1984, when the series was a best-of-five. Chicago had a 2-0 lead in that series before losing the final three games to San Diego.
The Dodgers have been tied 2-2 in an NLCS twice, in 1981 and '85. In '81, Los Angeles went on to win the series over the Montreal Expos. In '85, the Cardinals beat the Dodgers to advance to the World Series.
• The Cubs had scored 10 runs on the road in a postseason game only once before in franchise history. That was in 1908, in Game 1 of the last World Series they won.
• The Cubs, who were shut out in Games 2 and 3, snapped a 21-inning scoreless streak -- the longest in the club's postseason history -- when Willson Contreras hit an RBI single in the fourth. Chicago avoided becoming only the third team to be shut out in three straight playoff games, joining the 1966 Dodgers and 1905 A's.
• Cubs strike first, snap 21-inning drought
• When Julio Urías threw the first pitch of the game for the Dodgers, he became the youngest starting pitcher in postseason history, at just 20 years, 68 days old.
• The age gap between Urias and the Cubs' John Lackey, who was 37 years, 362 days old when he started Game 4, is the fifth-largest between any two starting pitchers in an MLB playoff game, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. The two Game 4 starters were 17 years, 294 days apart. (The largest age gap between two postseason starters was 21 years, 65 days, between 44-year-old Jamie Moyer and 23-year-old Ubaldo Jiménez in Game 3 of the 2007 NLDS between the Phillies and Rockies.)
• This was the 22nd postseason start of Lackey's career, tying him with Whitey Ford for sixth on the all-time list. Andy Pettitte holds the record (44).
• When Addison Russell hit a two-run homer in the fourth, he became only the fourth Cubs player under 23 years old to hit a postseason home run. Teammates Javier Báez and Kyle Schwarber homered in the playoffs at age 22 last season, and Frank Demaree did so in the 1932 World Series.
• Russell also is the sixth-youngest shortstop to homer in the postseason, just behind the Dodgers' Corey Seager and just ahead of Baez, who homered at that position in the 2015 playoffs.
• Russell's homer was the first that Urias had allowed at Dodger Stadium in his young career. He faced 167 batters at home during the regular season without surrendering a homer.
• Russell and Anthony Rizzo both homered for the Cubs in Game 4 despite entering the game mired in severe postseason slumps. Before Russell's home run, he was batting just .040 (1-for-25) in these playoffs. Rizzo was batting .071 (2-for-28) before his fifth-inning blast.
• Rizzo homered on a 98.9-mph fastball from Dodgers reliever Pedro Báez -- the hardest pitch Rizzo has ever hit for a home run. It's also the second-hardest pitch a Cubs player has homered on this year. Interestingly, the only Cub to homer on a faster pitch is Jake Arrieta, who took the Reds' Michael Lorenzen deep on a 99.5-mph fastball in June.
• Contreras was called for catcher's interference, allowing Josh Reddick to reach base in the fourth inning. Contreras was called for the same violation against the Giants' Ángel Pagán in Game 2 of the NL Division Series. This is the first time multiple catcher's interference calls have been made in the same postseason.
• Contreras also made a couple of nice defensive plays, though, including a pickoff of Justin Turner at second base and a diving tag on Adrián González on a bang-bang play at the plate that kept the Dodgers off the board early. On Contreras' pickoff, his 86-mph throw to get Turner was harder than any throw he made this season; his 1.89-second pop time was his second-fastest to nail a runner at second this year.
• Turner accounted for the Dodgers' only two runs with a fluky fifth-inning single that deflected off pitcher Mike Montgomery's glove and rolled into shallow left field. Still, Turner has now reached base safely in 14 consecutive postseason games -- he's been on base in every one of the Dodgers' playoff contests last year and this year. That ties him for the franchise record postseason on-base streak with Carl Furillo, who did it from 1953-56.
• The Dodgers committed four errors in their Game 4 loss, the first time they had done so in a playoff game since Game 3 of the 1974 NLCS. Wednesday marked their fifth postseason game with at least four errors in franchise history.
• Yasmani Grandal moved from catcher to first base for the Dodgers in the eighth inning, the fifth time he played first base in 2016 and the first time since Aug. 20, almost exactly two months ago.