Once the toast of Major League Baseball, the Los Angeles Dodgers are in the midst of one of the worst stretches in franchise history. A team that rattled off a 43-7 stretch, multiple winning streaks and appeared poised to at least tie the MLB record of 116 wins, suddenly can’t avoid losing.
Entering Tuesday’s game the San Francisco Giants, the Dodgers are mired in an 11-game losing streak. It’s the longest in Los Angeles franchise history, passing a 10-game skid in June 1992. What’s more, no other team has dropped 10 straight games this season.
The Dodgers are also the first team in MLB history to win 15 of 16 games and lose 15 of 16 games in the same season, per the Elias Sports Bureau. That’s since expanded to losing 16 of their last 17 contests.
Also according to Elias, the 1-15 stretch was the worst for a team that had already reached 90 wins. The Dodgers were the first team to win 90 games this season, yet the Washington Nationals became the first to clinch a playoff berth.
The losses piled up in what amounted to a disappointing week comprised of series against the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies. The Dodgers lost each game of a seven-game homestand for the first time ever.
The four-game sweep at Chavez Ravine was a first for the Rockies since Aug. 9-12, 1993 — their inaugural season.
Prior to the past week, the Dodgers’ longest homestand without a win was in Brooklyn during the 1893 season, per Stats LLC. Overall, they have dropped nine straight games at Dodger Stadium, which matches a record set in 1987.
The Dodgers are looking to right the ship at AT&T Park, where they haven’t won a series since September 2014. From there it’s a weekend road series with the Nationals, who enter Tuesday a mere three games back for the best record in baseball.