As the losing streak from Hell continued and reached double-digits over the weekend during a three-game sweep at the hands of the Colorado Rockies, I started thinking. Just how much longer can this go on with the Padres still having a shot at the postseason?
The answer? Well…believe it or not…just a little bit longer.
Picked dead last prior to the season, basically left for dead by their fan base, and with a new ownership simply waiting for official word so it could pull the plug and start picking away at the carcass, the Padres have shocked the baseball world by residing in first place for most of the 2010 season.
Until a week-and-a-half ago, this young group of overachievers had turned in one of the most memorable seasons in franchise history. Now it’s baseball history that is knocking on the door.
I say let it in.
The most consecutive losses by a team during a season in which it still reached the postseason is 11. The 1951 New York Giants — they of the famous Bobby Thomson home run — and the 1982 Atlanta Braves — they managed by a young Joe Torre — are the teams that did it.
If the Padres can simply drop their next two, perhaps easier said than done with the faded Dodgers in town to start a series Monday and Tuesday, they can run their current losing streak to an even dozen. Even if San Francisco win its next two — at Arizona — the Friars would be just a game out of first place.
And, thus, they would be in perfect position to set the new record. You think this has been a remarkable season to this point? How about losing 12 in a row (or more) and then still winning the division? Everything the Padres have done this season to this point has been hard to believe, so why not do that?
Something almost 180-degree the opposite happened to the Friars in 1999. That year, they won a remarkable 14-consecutive games (still the franchise record) in June and into early July to even their record at 39-39, pulling from 13 games out to within three of first place. Unfortunately they never got any closer and stumbled home in fourth-place with a final mark of 74-88.
(Strange, really, that a fourth-place team which finished the year 26 games behind the division-winning Arizona Diamondbacks has the franchise record for most consecutive wins).
But even stranger would be establishing a new all-time record losing streak by a postseason team. For whatever reason, this seems like the perfect team and the perfect season to do it.
In ‘51, the Giants had their 11-game losing streak in April, so one might figure that the Polo Ground boys had plenty of time to recover. But, thanks to their early-season struggles, the Giants were still 13 games back of Brooklyn in mid-August.
History, of course, has recorded many times over what happened next. The Miracle of Coogan’s Bluff. The Giants went 39-8 down the stretch with Thomsons famous homer winning the pennant in Game 3 of a National League Playoff over the Dodgers.
Torre’s Braves of ‘82 also wound up beating out the Dodgers by one game to reach the playoffs. But it looked hopeless for Atlanta in August when its 11-game losing streak resulted in the Braves going from seven ahead of Los Angeles to 2 1/2-games behind. In all, Atlanta would lose 19 of 22 games and fall four games off the pace on Aug. 18.
But the Braves would recover, catching the Dodgers in September and then holding them off by a game on the season’s final day despite losing in (of all places) San Diego. (The Dodgers lost their finale on a late home run by Joe Morgan in San Francisco).
Anyway, the bottom line is that — despite the current anguish — this 2010 season can still turn out a hundred different ways. Maybe the Padres turn it around tonight and never lose the division lead. Maybe the Giants pass ‘em and win it. Perhaps it turns out to be another amazing September for the Rockies.
But the most memorable thing that could happen is for the Padres to drop at least two more in a row. Then recover from a record-setting losing streak to become champions.
History is waiting.
– Ello
Craig Elsten -
Chainsaw -
