Mets playoffs: Historically, road team has Game 5 advantage in LDS

After losing five out of their last six games, the Mets lost out on their chances for NLDS home-field advantage. They were up two games with six to go and owned the tiebreaker on Los Angeles before their late-season struggles. As a result, tomorrow night's Game 5 will be hosted by the Dodgers.

Historically speaking, this may be not be a bad thing for the Mets.  Road teams are 15-10 all-time in LDS Game 5s since the series was first introduced in 1995. In the National League, road teams are 6-3 in Game 5s. Yesterday, road teams—first the Rangers, then the Astros—went 0-2 in their deciding Game 5 matchups.

Home teams dominated Game 5 in the early LDS era, going 5-2 from 1995-2001. Road teams then won nine consecutive Game 5s from 2002-2011. Since then, they are 4-5 including yesterday's games. So while the road tam has the historical advantage, it has been a more even affair of late.

The Mets were 41-40 on the road this season, including a 3-2 mark at Dodger Stadium. The team won two of three in Los Angeles in early July before splitting the first two games of this series there.

This bodes well for the Mets, who will be playing their first road winner-take-all game since a playoff tiebreaker against the Reds after the 1999 season. The Mets won that game 5-0, as Al Leiter pitched a two-hit shutout. They will hope for a similar outing from Jacob deGrom tomorrow.