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Even after acquiring ace pitcher Tarik Skubal, the Dodgers have weakened considerably in a competitive slide that could have large-scale implications across baseball.
With Sunday’s loss at Arizona, the Dodgers have lost eight of their last nine games and 15 of the last 24. The club’s 14-game lead in the National League West in early July has since been cut nearly in half to 7.5 games entering Monday’s games as the Dodgers have lost three straight series for the first time since September 2025.
Over a longer period this year, the team is just 21-21 in its last 42 games—a stretch representing a quarter of the 2026 regular season—and two-way star Shohei Ohtani hasn’t pitched in more than a month.
The expanded dominance that had been expected from the Dodgers after landing Skubal, a two-time Cy Young Award winner, and forcing the club to respond to renewed “blowback,” has since become anything but that.
“We have to make adjustments,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “I think, for me, that’s sort of what I see as a group. We’re just not making adjustments.”
Labor Matters
While the Dodgers have not been directly referenced in labor proposals from the owners, the club’s activity and the spending gap it has amplified certainly have as management seeks a hard salary cap and significant rollbacks to MLB’s reserve system.
“I believe that in order for this game to reach its full potential, we need to continue to address the concerns our fans have, particularly the concerns that go to the core of what we’re about, which is competitive balance,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said last month. “It defies human experience to ask a fan to think that the bottom end of that [payroll] gap has the same opportunity to win as the top.”
That sought-after competitive balance, however, is arguably there already. The Brewers, operating in MLB’s smallest media market, again have risen to become the top team in the NL, while low-budget upstarts such as the Rays, White Sox, and Marlins are pushing for playoff spots.
“I think it’s a big bargaining point for Major League Baseball to get out there and say fans want more competitive play, but in my opinion, it’s the most competitive the league’s ever been,” former MLB star Anthony Rizzo told Front Office Sports last week.
A key part of this management argument, meanwhile, is not just reaching the playoffs, but advancing deep in them and winning the World Series. The last World Series winner to come from a below-average payroll was the 2017 Astros, a title with significant baggage due to that club’s sign-stealing scandal, and the last involving a small-market franchise was the 2015 Royals. None of that will change until the Dodgers, the league’s two-time defending champion, are dethroned.
“We’ve still got a really good ballclub. There’s certainly not panic,” Roberts said. “I think, for us, it’s just finding a way to win a game, and [then] win consistently.”
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