Discussion on baseball-related social media over the last week has focused on one topic, and one topic only: the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Dodgers, back-to-back World Series champions, entered the weekend leading up to the Major League Baseball trade deadline with several major question marks, despite their massive payroll. Starter Blake Snell remained injured, with just three innings pitched in 2026 after only 61 innings in 2025. Tyler Glasnow was also sidelined with a back injury after throwing only 39.2 innings earlier in the season. Emmett Sheehan, after a breakout 2025, had struggled mightily in recent starts, and the injuries had forced LA to turn to journeyman Eric Lauer.
So they did what any team trying to win a World Series should do, and made their roster better. Instead of hoping for the best, LA's front office traded Zyhir Hope, River Ryan, and Brady Smith to the Tigers for defending AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal. This set off a firestorm of anger, outrage, hatred, and conspiracy theories, as well as wailing and gnashing of teeth from commentators and fans who demanded that owners lock players out to pocket more money, or acted as though this marked the end of baseball.
LOS ANGELES DODGERS TRADE FOR TARIK SKUBAL HIGHLIGHTS MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL'S MASSIVE PROBLEM
Why? Because the Dodgers were now simply too good to be beaten. No team could compete with their combination of talent and depth. The season, and postseason, were effectively over.
And as if part of some divine plan, the Dodgers chose this very week to demonstrate to fans, those commentators, and the "ruining baseball" casuals why they're all hopelessly wrong. LA hosted the Red Sox at Dodger Stadium late last week, and were promptly swept by a surging Boston team. They allowed six straight runs in the late innings of game one to lose 9-4, managed just two runs on 10 hits in a 3-2 loss in game two, then gave up four home runs in game three to lost 8-4.
After that loss, they flew to Chicago to face the Cubs, another team on a hot streak in recent weeks. After jumping out to a 3-0 first inning lead in game one, starter Justin Wrobleski gave up four home runs, leading to a 10-5 blowout loss.
Skubal made his Dodgers debut on Tuesday afternoon, going six innings and allowing just two runs with six strikeouts. The Dodgers lost 5-1, with just a solo home run from Kyle Tucker to show from their vaunted, unbeatable offense.
TARIK SKUBAL'S DODGERS DEBUT ENDS IN DECISIVE 5-1 LOSS TO CUBS AS LA DROPS FIFTH STRAIGHT GAME
Then, on Wednesday, the Dodgers got a leadoff home run from Shohei Ohtani and proceeded to allow seven straight runs to the Chicago offense. Two homers from Pete Crow-Armstrong and a parade of hits from the bottom of the Cubs lineup made it 7-1 heading into the eighth inning. The Dodgers, to their credit, displayed a modicum of fight, putting up five runs in the inning, but came up short in a 7-6 loss.
Six straight losses. Just two wins in their last eight games. LA also fell to 8-13 in their last 21 games, and has yet to win in August. The best case scenario would be a win on Friday, meaning they'd have gone more than a week without a win. Should the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the San Diego Padres later Wednesday evening, their once insurmountable 14-game lead over second place will drop to eight games. Ahead of a weekend series between the Diamondbacks and Dodgers in Phoenix.
Over their last six games, the unbeatable LA juggernaut has been outscored 42-22 by the opposition. While they once had a stranglehold on the first overall seed in the National League and the first round bye, they're now several games behind the Milwaukee Brewers and could fall behind the Atlanta Braves into the third seed, should Atlanta hold their lead against the Miami Marlins.
Which means that were the season to end today, the Dodgers would be playing in a wild card series. Ruining baseball indeed.
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Again, this is the problem with that talking point. Are the Dodgers better than the Cubs or Red Sox? Sure, probably. But over the course of an entire season, 162 games, the gap in winning percentage between those teams might be as little as 5%. Meanwhile, in the NFL, the Patriots and Seahawks won 82.4% of their games in 2025. The Chiefs won 88% of their games in 2024. The gap between teams in baseball, despite the lack of a salary cap, is much smaller than in most other sports. Which is why the best team frequently wins the Super Bowl, and doesn't always, or even often, win the World Series in baseball.
Instead of acknowledging this, the Skubal trade has given rise to conspiracy theories from Brewers fans that the Tigers took the Dodgers offer because of some type of hypothetical collusion. Or something. Even though the Tigers wanted MLB-ready controllable starting pitching, which the Dodgers offered, and the Brewers reportedly didn't. It's given rise to many within and outside baseball demanding a salary cap, which will have little impact on the outcome of the games, but a tremendous impact on the ability of owners to pocket more profits.
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And it's made many ignore that for all their talent, the Dodgers have plenty of flaws too. Kyle Tucker has been a tremendous disappointment, having the worst offensive season of his career. Mookie Betts has been a well-below-average hitter this year. Edwin Diaz has allowed nine runs in 8.2 innings. Yes, Snell and Glasnow are expected to return soon, but are frequently injured and no guarantee to stay healthy. Roki Sasaki has been wildly inconsistent. Their bullpen has been among baseball's worst for the past month.
Does this mean LA won't win the World Series? No. But it does demonstrate that nothing in baseball is a foregone conclusion. That there's no way to predict outcomes in a postseason series in August. And that acting as though LA is unbeatable or ruining baseball is as wrong and delusional as believing owners care about the "health" of the game or anything but higher profits.
