The Los Angeles Dodgers have lost seven straight games in August 2026 — only the second time that’s happened in the last nine seasons. Three things drove the skid: a bullpen posting a 5.53 ERA since the All-Star break, an offense averaging 4.18 runs per game that ranks 20th in MLB, and a starting rotation missing Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, and Shohei Ohtani (as a starter). Before anyone sounds the alarm, it’s worth remembering this exact team did the same thing in July 2025 — and ended up winning the World Series.
How the Streak Happened: Sweeps, Runs, and a Bullpen on Fire
It started with a home sweep at Dodger Stadium at the hands of the Boston Red Sox in late July. Then the Chicago Cubs took three straight at Wrigley Field from August 3–5. In those first six losses, Los Angeles was outscored 42–22 — opponents scored seven or more runs in four of those six games.
The seventh loss, on August 6 or 7, made it a historical footnote: only the second time in nine seasons the Dodgers have dropped seven in a row. The most recent prior instance was July 2025. Before that, you had to go all the way back to September 2017, when they lost eleven straight.
The biggest culprit is the bullpen. Since the All-Star break, Dodgers relievers are carrying a 5.53 ERA — nearly six earned runs allowed per nine innings — which erases any lead the rotation builds. Will Klein landed on the IL with an elbow issue after getting scored on in six consecutive appearances. Evan Phillips, back from Tommy John surgery, has already surrendered four home runs in just 8⅔ innings.
The rotation has its own problems. With Snell out since May 15 and Glasnow since May 8, the Dodgers have been piecing together starts with arms that weren’t built to carry the load in August.
The Offense That Promised More — and the Kyle Tucker Question
The pitching tells half the story. The other half belongs to an offense that, since July 1, is averaging 4.18 runs per game and ranks 20th in MLB — a hard number to square with Los Angeles’s payroll. In their last 11 games, they’ve scored more than four runs just three times.
Kyle Tucker, the marquee offseason addition on a four-year, $240 million contract, is sitting at career lows in AVG (.243), SLG (.381), and an OPS+ of 101 — essentially league average, a long way from the impact bat Los Angeles was paying for.
Andy Pages started the year hitting .304/.357/.530 over his first 46 games, then fell to .245/.318/.405 over the next 67. And while Ohtani has kept hitting — he homered against the Cubs on August 5 — his absence from the rotation takes away one of the game’s elite starting options.
Why the History Says Don’t Panic
The Dodgers still lead the NL West. Their division lead over Arizona shrunk from 14 games to roughly 8 games during the streak, but an 8-game cushion in August is a working margin, not a crisis.
The team’s own recent history makes the panic argument hard to sustain:
- In 2025, they lost seven straight in July, went 22–32 over a 54-game stretch — a pace that projects to 66 wins over a full season — and still won the World Series.
- In 2024, they went 10–14 at one point mid-year and 3–6 in September before winning it all.
The pattern is consistent: this team knows how to struggle and knows how to bounce back.
Tarik Skubal has already made his debut with the club — one loss in his first start doesn’t tell you much about a two-time Cy Young winner — and Blake Snell is expected back in the rotation the week of August 10. With reinforcements arriving and the division lead intact, the real question isn’t whether the Dodgers are going to collapse. It’s whether they’re going to become the first team to win three straight World Series since the 1998–2000 Yankees.
