The Dodgers 8-0 win over the Mets Wednesday night returns home field advantage to Los Angeles. During the broadcast, I believe I saw a graphic that basically said the team that wins game three after a 1-1 tie wins the series 69% of the time.

That number is provided without context, however. For example, a team that loses game three after winning the same two should still win the series more often than not. The binomial theorem calculation shows that a the probability of winning at least two games in four for teams that are evenly matched is 0.65. That pretty close to 0.69. It shouldn’t matter how you get to 2-1.

So it would be nice if the networks compare that to the theoretical probability. That’s why the 3-0 situation is so interesting. Teams sweep much more often that you would expect, possibly indicating that the teams were not evenly matched.