BOBBY THOMSON

With the baseball postseason expanding to 12 teams this year, if two teams end up deadlocked for a division title or playoff spot, there will no longer be a one-game playoff to break those ties.

Sooner than many baseball fans wanted, maybe, but the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers will meet in a winner-take-all Game 5 of the NL Division Series at Oracle Park.

Everybody expected a playoff series for the ages between the century-old rival Dodgers and Giants, and now they’ve got it.

It is only fitting that 70 years after Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard ’Round the World” that the Giants and Dodgers will play in another all-or-nothing game.

The San Francisco Giants finally won the NL West without needing to wait for the rival Dodgers' result on the season’s final day, pounding the San Diego Padres 11-4 for a franchise-record 107th victory to top the 1904 New York team.

Aaron Boone hit a game-ending leadoff homer in the 11th, sending New York to the World Series. 2015 WORLD SERIES GAME 5Matt Harvey and the New York Mets held a 2-0 lead, needing a win to send the Series back to Kansas City. 2016 WORLD SERIES GAME 7The Chicago Cubs led the Cleveland Indians 5-1 heading into the bottom of the fifth. 2019 WORLD SERIES GAME 7Too bad for Houston fans, the last time they saw Gerrit Cole throw, it was in the bullpen rather than on the mound. “I wasn’t going to pitch him unless we were going to win the World Series and have a lead,” Hinch said.