Chicago Cubs: Ranking all postseason series since 1984

Cubs History: The franchise finally started winning postseason series at the turn of the century

#6: 2017 National League Division Series:

The last postseason series the Cubs have won was just a few years ago in 2017. Winning 92 games as the defending champions, the road to repeating began in Washington D.C. against the 97-win Nationals, who were managed by former Cubs manager Dusty Baker.

Cubs took game one behind another postseason gem by Kyle Hendricks and took the lead in the series in game three at home, thanks to Anthony Rizzo’s bloop RBI single in the eighth inning. It all came down to a winner-take-all game five after the Nationals blanked the Cubs in Game 4. Game five was a crazy five-hour theater of madness, misplays, and video reviews, which required the Cubs to erase an early 4-1 deficit in the fifth inning and hang on the rest of the way by the skin of their teeth. It all ended when Wade Davis struck out Bryce Harper to seal a 9-8 victory.

The 2017 NLDS was the fifth postseason series win for the Cubs in three years. They had one from 1909-2014.

#5: 2003 National League Division Series:

It took the Cubs 95 years, but they finally won their first postseason series since 1908 in 2003 when they defeated the 101-win Atlanta Braves in the NLDS. Who would have thought the Cinderella 88-win Cubs could take down Greg Maddux and the Big Bad Bravos? Well, they did.

Kerry Wood’s arm and bat lead the Cubs to a game one win while Mark Prior pitched a complete game to beat Maddux in game three to take a 2-1 series lead. A potential celebration was sunk in game four as Chipper Jones went off to help the Braves force a game five in Atlanta. A good 30,000 Cubs fans showed up to Turner Field to watch Wood throw an eight-inning, one run masterpiece to help their team cruise to a 5-1 victory. Joe Borowski closed it out by striking out Andruw Jones. Crowds gathered in Wrigleyville to celebrate their postseason series win and a trip to the NLCS.

That was far and away the best postseason memory for the Cubs before 2015.

#4: 2016 National League Division Series:

The 2016 October journey to a World Series title began against the Wild Card San Francisco Giants. It featured a nail-biting 1-0 win in game one behind Jon Lester and Javier Baez, the thrashing of old pal Jeff Samardzija in game two, and an epic comeback in game four.

Of all the stories often told by the Cubs fans, it seems like this series is talked about the least. It kind of makes sense considering it was round one, but it was a historical series. Erasing a 5-2 deficit in the ninth inning of game four and winning 6-5 was the biggest postseason-clinching comeback in history. Heck, the one-loss the Cubs suffered featured the Jake Arrieta three-run shot off Madison Bumgardner. Mix in the Travis Wood home run in game two and Baez go-ahead shot in game one, and you got plenty of historical moments to talk about from the series.