The 10 Best Division Series of All Time, Ranked
On the heels of an utterly spectacular Division Series between the Milwaukee Brewers and San Diego Padres — a walk-off, a home run robbery, two paternity leaves, oh my! — I found myself chewing on two pervasive thoughts. One: that was a hell of a series, and it really deserved a fifth game. Two: how many other Division Series have been on that level?
Since the Division Series’ true birth in 1995 (the 1981 strike led to a one-off set of Division Series that autumn, which then went dormant until the next strike made them permanent) we’ve now had 128 of them, with 41 ending in sweeps and 39 going all the way to a do-or-die Game 5, with the ongoing White Sox-Guardians series becoming the 40th. While early-round series in any sport are bound to have some impossibly stacked rosters beating the brakes off ahead-of-schedule teams that are just happy to be cashing playoff bonuses, the history of the Division Series is also rich with indelible postseason memories. With baseball’s inherent small-sample wackiness often playing a huge role — in 2023, both the 100-win Dodgers and 101-win Orioles were swept out of the Division Series by the unlikeliest World Series participants of the decade — these series often shrink the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Sure, sometimes you get a quick sweep where all three games are forgettable, but if you take a fine-tooth comb through the LDS annals, you’ll also find some 3-0 sets that were dripping with tension. (In 1996, for instance, the Cardinals swept the Padres in a series where San Diego sent the tying run to the plate in the ninth inning of all three games.)
This ranking of the best Division Series ever does not include any of those sweeps, or even any four-gamers, though many tried their damnedest. Division Series touchstones like Pedro Martínez coming out of the bullpen for six untouchable innings or Todd Pratt’s improbable homer play well in a highlight reel, but one great moment does not make a great series. The same thing is true of remarkable Game 5s that capped off an otherwise blah affair. We all remember Howie Kendrick’s 2019 grand slam at Dodger Stadium, but forget that the average margin of victory in that Nationals-Dodgers showdown was 4.6 runs. The same thing is true of the Dodgers’ Division Series in 2021 against the Giants, which ended with Max Scherzer’s only career save and sparked the great check swing debate of our times, but also had games decided by four, five, and seven runs.
For a series to be wholly great, it needs start-to-finish drama, star power, and multiple classic games; a little sprinkling of narrative intrigue doesn’t hurt either. Here are the 10 best of the Division Series variety, presented in descending order.
10. All of 2012
This one is obviously cheating, but 2012 is the only year in which all four Division Series went five games, so it gets its own spot. The fact that shorthand is a sufficient way to summarize many of the key events — the Buster Posey grand slam, the Pete Kozma game, the Raul Ibanez game, Justin Verlander vs. Oakland Round 1 — is all you need to know about how spectacular the second week of October was in 2012.
9. 2016 – Dodgers Beat Nationals 3-2
There was a time in the not-so-distant past where the dominant conversation surrounding Dodgers playoff games was that Clayton Kershaw wasn’t very good in them, and that the Los Angeles bullpen was even worse. This narrative clung to the Dodgers as they entered the 2016 postseason having been bounced in the Division Series each of the last two years. This time, though, led by young first-year manager Dave Roberts, questions abounded regarding the team’s overall postseason mettle.
While those were somewhat quieted by Kershaw outdueling Scherzer to take a tight Game 1, the Dodgers dropped each of the next two games, one of which featured Kenley Jansen puking up four earned runs. Allow me to briefly remember some other Dodger bullpen guys who played a big role in this series: Luis Avilán, Pedro Báez, Joe Blanton, and Grant Dayton each made at least three appearances. Avilán, Báez, and Blanton were all dynamite, escaping the series without giving up an earned run. Dayton, however, was the reason the Dodgers nearly blew it again. He took the mound for the seventh inning of Game 5, the Dodgers holding a three-run lead. He was tasked with the bottom of Washington’s lineup, the type of thing that seems simple until you remember that absolutely nothing is simple in playoff baseball. He walked Danny Espinosa, gave up a pinch-hit bomb to Chris Heisey, and then let Clint Robinson reach on a single.
From there, somewhat famously, Roberts aggressively fired Jansen and Kershaw for the final nine outs. Kershaw not only logged his first and only major league save that night, he did so while coming into a messy inning with the tying run in scoring position. This brief but successful outing was as storybook as it gets, removing a fairly sizable monkey yelling about postseason shortcomings from his back. Let us also quickly pay respect to Chase Utley, whose game-winning hit in Game 4 saved the Dodgers’ bacon.
8. 2017 – Yankees Beat Cleveland 3-2
The 2017 Yankees remain the last team to lose the first two games of an LDS and still win the series, though the Guardians could change that on Saturday. Falling into that hole made for an exigent series in its own right, but the Yankees starting the comeback with seven shutout innings from Masahiro Tanaka and a left-on-left Greg Bird homer against a warlock reliever made it even more impressive.
Luis Severino pitched the game of his life to win Game 4, and Didi Gregorius thumped two homers off Corey Kluber, who’d go on to win his second Cy Young that year, to win Game 5. There are so many other things from this series to mention, like how Aaron Judge struck out 16 times, comfortably breaking the Division Series record, or how Cleveland committed a mind-boggling nine errors in five games. It would also be a tremendous oversight not to mention that Game 2 — a 9-8 win for Cleveland that took 13 innings — is one of the very best baseball games of this century, and contained this clip, which I would watch if I ever needed to summon the strength to lift a two-story home from its foundation.
7. 2011 – Cardinals Beat Phillies 3-2
On paper, the 2011 Phillies had everything. This was the fabled Four Aces team, and those four — Roy Halladay (twice), Cole Hamels, Cliff Lee, and Roy Oswalt — made every start of this series. The offense still had its championship core intact as well, even if they were aging. Ryan Madson had an excellent year filling in for the injured Brad Lidge as the team’s primary closer, and on top of that, these Phils were battle tested, having participated in each of the previous four Octobers.
What they didn’t account for was the little guys.
Skip Schumaker and Ryan Theriot were as much of a reason the Cardinals won this series as their Hall of Fame teammates were. While Albert Pujols hit .350 and Yadier Molina threw out three would-be basestealers while masterfully guiding Cardinals pitchers through the vaunted Phillies lineup, Schumaker and Theriot combined to go 12-for-20 with four doubles and four RBI. The biggest of those RBI came in the decisive Game 5, when Schumaker flicked the 10th pitch of his first at-bat off Halladay into the right field corner. It wound up being the only run of the game.
That game is seared into the Delaware Valley’s collective memory for many reasons, the biggest two being Chris Carpenter bullying the Phillies all night en route to a complete game shutout, and Ryan Howard tearing his Achilles in the game’s final at-bat, which was the definitive and unfortunate end to that run of good fortune in Philadelphia. But that game was also one of three one-run affairs in this highly competitive series, including a Game 2 where the Cardinals clawed back from an early 4-0 deficit to beat Lee, and a nailbiter Game 3 where neither team scored until Ben Francisco lifted a pinch-hit homer in the seventh.
Apart from an 11-6 Phillies win to start the series, every game of this tilt was a box office spectacle.
6. 1997 – Cleveland Beats Yankees 3-2
The defending-champion Yankees squared off against Cleveland, with both teams right in the teeth of their ’90s revitalization. They were kind enough to only play bangers.
In Game 1 in the Bronx, the visitors jumped David Cone for five runs in the first inning, only to turn around and watch their bullpen give the Yankees five right back in the sixth. It wasn’t any ordinary offensive explosion either; the Yanks went back-to-back-to-back, marking the first time that had ever happened in a postseason game. If you like watching videos of old Yankee Stadium going ham, I highly recommend pressing play.
Cleveland roughed up Andy Pettitte to steal Game 2, but then lost Game 3 at home, setting up two win-or-go-home games. Because of the playoff format of the time, those were both in Cleveland, and while we will never be able to quantify home field advantage, the hometown nine did take both of them by exactly one run. In Game 4, Cleveland was four outs from elimination when Sandy Alomar Jr. took Mariano Rivera deep in the eighth and Omar Vizquel walked it off in the ninth.
After all that mayhem, there was still a Game 5, which Jose Mesa saved only after putting a runner on second. This whole series was littered with high leverage, and when you factor in the wattage of Derek Jeter, Rivera, Tim Raines, Wade Boggs, Bernie Williams, Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, David Justice, Orel Hershiser, and several other household names, it easily cements its place in this ranking.
5. 2015 – Blue Jays Beat Rangers 3-2
To this day, Blue Jays-Rangers in 2015 is the series that felt the most like drugs. The energy from pre-renovation Rogers Centre was palpable through the television screen, and rightfully so. This was the Blue Jays’ first taste of October baseball since winning the title in 1993, and their berth in the postseason broke the longest active playoff drought at the time.
Naturally, the Jays lost their first two home games, getting dinked and dunked by Delino DeShields and Hanser Alberto. Game 2 was the real barnburner though, needing 14 innings and 37 total players to complete.
If you’re going to poke holes in this series’ status as an all-timer, it’s because Games 3 and 4 in Texas were relative snoozers. But Game 5 more than made up for them. It was not just a spine tingler, a national exaltation for all of Canada, and the moment that bat flips fully went mainstream thanks to José Bautista’s epic go-ahead home run, but it was also a reminder of what it means to truly be alive (and also that if a catcher throws the ball back to the pitcher and it doinks off the hitter’s bat, that’s still a live ball).
4. 2001 – Diamondbacks Beat Cardinals 3-2
If a series in which every game is decided by three runs or less, the teams alternate wins, and the final swing produces a walk-off hit doesn’t do it for you, this probably just isn’t your jam.
The Diamondbacks won this series despite getting outscored 12-10. They also lost the lone game that Randy Johnson started. The Cardinals, meanwhile, managed to hit a measly .191 for the series and relied heavily on their bullpen, which lacked a true alpha and wasn’t particularly strong in the regular season. Put all that in a blender and you get a weird, gelatinous substance that doesn’t quite feel right but is compelling nonetheless.
One man who was on top of his game was Curt Schilling, who has a case for the best Division Series performance ever. Schilling started two games and went nine innings in both of them, starting with a true masterpiece in Game 1 (nine strikeouts, three hits, zero runs). The encore in Game 5 came with a teensy blemish, but Schilling matched his nine strikeouts and finished with a record-setting 1.30 Win Probability Added for the series. His 18 innings pitched in a Division Series are also a record, and if you’re wondering about that solitary mistake, it was leaving this pitch to J.D. Drew over the plate.
Luckily for the neutral fan, Schilling’s poor location set up Tony Womack’s series-ending floater, foreshadowing more clutchness from him later that postseason.
3. 2003 – Red Sox Beat Athletics 3-2
If you sat down and watched every game of this series today, you’d probably say the worst one was the A’s 5-1 win in Game 2, which was the most lopsided of the series. But that would also mean you just watched Barry Zito twirl seven innings of poetry. Zito’s gem put the Athletics in the driver’s seat but unable to finish the race, as the Red Sox ran off a trio of wins to take the series. First in line to make Oakland slightly less romantic about baseball: Trot Nixon.
The very next day, the A’s lugged a lead into the eighth inning and hitched their wagon to Keith Foulke for the final six outs. He got the first two, then was interrupted by David Ortiz.
All good, Zito was on the hill for Game 5! What’s this, now? He faced Pedro? And gave Manny an 86-mph nothing ball right down the middle? Oh.
The Red Sox took that game in another white knuckler that put a period on an unfathomable streak for the A’s. The green and gold endured four straight ALDS Game 5 losses from 2000-03, with this one marking the second in three years after winning the first two games of the series. Tough for the East Bay baseball fans, cinema (literally and figuratively) for fans of exciting ball. And hey, A’s fans will always have Ramon Hernandez’s bizarre yet effective two-out, walk-off bunt from Game 1.
2. 2013 – Tigers Beat Athletics 3-2
It is not hyperbole at all to say every game of this series had a serotonin spike. If Scherzer and Bartolo Colon duking it out in Game 1 wasn’t enough for you, that game ended with the slimmest of margins as Joaquín Benoit had to slay Brandon Moss and Yoenis Cespedes to close it out. Game 2 was a scoreless tie into the bottom of the ninth — Justin Verlander and Sonny Gray, take a bow — when then-unknown catcher Stephen Vogt spanked a walk-off single. In Game 3, Grant Balfour and Victor Martinez screamed at each other real loud! The Tigers trailed 3-0 in Game 4, then 4-3, and still managed to pull out a win. That game deserves a closer look, because Scherzer came in for a relief outing that was this close to being a complete disaster.
To set the scene, Scherzer relieved Doug Fister in the top of the seventh, with the game knotted at three. Some small ball from the A’s spawned the aforementioned 4-3 lead, but the Tigers got it back in the seventh, partly due to a home run that may or may not have been interfered with.
When Scherzer came out for the eighth, he proceeded to load the bases with nobody out, grit his way to two massive strikeouts, then run the count full to Alberto Callaspo, who laced a line drive that hung up just long enough to be caught. It really was an absolute powder keg of a baseball game.
Game 5 was more tyranny from Verlander, who was just torturous to the A’s. At this point we’ll stop highlighting Oakland’s shortcomings and focus on Verlander, who is one of five pitchers to post a 0.00 ERA in an LDS while tossing at least 10 innings.
1. 1995 – Mariners Beat Yankees 3-2
I don’t need to explain why this series is paramount to the Seattle Mariners’ very existence, or how Ken Griffey Jr. chugging around the bases to win Game 5 is surely the best that any baseball player has ever looked while running.
What maybe does need explaining is everything that led to Edgar Martinez’s picturesque swing and The Kid’s wild ride. Like how Griffey (maybe the most beloved player the Mariners have ever employed) uncorked two home runs off David Cone in Game 1, only for reliever Bobby Ayala (maybe the least beloved player the Mariners have ever employed) to later serve up three runs that essentially sealed Seattle’s loss. Perhaps you were unaware that Vince Coleman and his .345 career slugging percentage hit a tater in Game 2, a sordid evening in the Bronx that lasted over five hours, culminating in Jim Leyritz’s walk-off dinger that nearly killed professional baseball in Seattle.
The Mariners bounced back to win a fun Game 3 and had to overcome a five-run deficit to survive Game 4. While Martinez’s legacy is tied to The Double in Game 5, the M’s aren’t even in that position if not for his less-heralded handiwork the day before. It is a marvel of human accomplishment that he kept the first one fair.
Game 5 was one for the books. While the heroics of both Martinez and Griffey are deserving of their own 20,000 words, and are the main reason why this series gets the top spot, let’s continue the education around the other parts of that legendary Sunday at the Kingdome.
Cone unleashed a legitimately reckless 147 pitches, the Yankees finished with six hits but 10 walks, and a rookie setup man named Rivera made his third straight scoreless appearance on his way to leading all pitchers in WPA for the series.
They were five close, high-scoring games that could never be replicated, have been slightly imitated, but are now forever vindicated with the top spot on this list.
