It was clear beforehand, given the teams’ recent playoff histories, that one fan base would be traumatized by Game 5 of the Dodgers-Nationals series Wednesday. Either the Dodgers would lose a decisive game at home, again, and fall short of a World Series title for the seventh consecutive year despite a franchise-record 106 wins in the regular season, or the Nationals would lose in an NLDS Game 5 for the fourth time in seven years and continue their streak of playoff futility.
Somehow, reality proved even worse than expectations. L.A. took a 3-1 lead into the eighth inning and at one point had an 89 percent chance to win, according to historic win probability data, only for Clayton Kershaw to allow home runs on consecutive pitches, manager Dave Roberts to call on Joe Kelly instead of Kenley Jansen to pitch with the game tied, and Kelly to allow a 10th-inning grand slam that sent fans at Dodger Stadium scurrying to the exits. To say the Dodgers suffered October heartbreak yet again is to severely understate the shattering pain this playoff loss wrought.
But is theirs the worst of the decade? Let’s figure it out. Stats site The Baseball Gauge computes a “comeback” score for every playoff series (and wild-card game)—essentially, how close the eventual losing team came to winning, as measured by its peak series win probability. So to calculate a painful playoff loss score for each team this decade, we calculated the combined comeback numbers for each team that lost a series, with the baseline set at 50 percent. For instance, the Dodgers’ series win probability against the Nationals peaked at 89.3 percent, so L.A. gets 89.3 - 50 = 39.3 points for this series.
These rankings don’t reflect the specific circumstances of the games—though we talk a lot about them below—just how close a team came to winning before snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The most painful playoff losses, we figure, are generally the ones in which triumphant dreams are the closest to realization, whereas it’s relatively harder to grow worked up about, say, a sweep in which the team never leads.
With that background in mind, here are the 30 teams ranked from least playoff pain in the 2010s to most. The main lesson? Almost every fan base suffers in foul, agonizingly memorable ways; baseball is a terribly heart-wrenching pastime, and nobody should ever root for a team.
27 (tied). Chicago White Sox—0 points; Seattle Mariners—0 points; Miami Marlins—0 points; San Diego Padres—0 points
These four teams illustrate the Roll Safe meme for October: You can’t lose in excruciating fashion in the playoffs if you don’t make the playoffs at all! (Alternate headline for this piece: Actually, Mariners Fans, You Are the Luckiest Group in Baseball.)
26. San Francisco Giants—0.4 points
The Giants blew a three-run lead in Game 4 of the 2016 NLDS; at the peak, the Giants had a 97.7 percent chance of winning that game, making it the second-worst collapse in any individual playoff game of the 2010s. But that’s the club’s only playoff series loss in the 2010s, versus three championships, so Giants fans can frankly sit out any conversations about postseason pain.
25. Toronto Blue Jays—1.9 points
Toronto never had a great chance of winning either of the series it lost in the 2010s, thus the low ranking here. But the 2015 Blue Jays stand out because they were perhaps the most entertaining club of the entire decade, then advanced to the ALCS on perhaps the most entertaining game (which produced the José Bautista bat flip) of the entire decade. The Royals took a 3-1 series lead, but Toronto won Game 5 before falling short in a thrilling Game 6: Lorenzo Cain scored from first on a single to give the Royals the lead in the eighth inning, and the Blue Jays failed to score in the ninth despite putting runners on first and third with no outs.
24. Boston Red Sox—3.1 points
As befits a franchise with tremendous historical success and no playoff pain of any kind, Boston won two titles this decade and didn’t have a single series loss that ever came close to a win.
23. Colorado Rockies—6.3 points
Like Boston, the Rockies didn’t come all that close to winning either series they lost this decade, but both produced tragicomic outcomes. In the 2017 wild-card game, Colorado allowed a game-breaking two-run triple to relief pitcher Archie Bradley; in the 2018 NLDS, fresh off a stirring wild-card win, Colorado basically didn’t try against Milwaukee, scoring a total of two runs in a listless sweep.
22. Los Angeles Angels—8.3 points
For the Angels, the most gut-wrenching playoff series this decade is every one that the team with Mike Trout didn’t play in. In the club’s lone postseason trip in the 2010s, the no. 1 seed lost to the Royals in a sweep, dropping both home games in extra innings.
21. Arizona Diamondbacks—17.9 points
The Diamondbacks led Game 5 of the 2011 NLDS early, but Jerry Hairston (!), Yuniesky Betancourt (!!), and Nyjer Morgan (!!!) all drove in runs to propel the Brewers to a walk-off victory.
20. New York Mets—26.8 points
The Mets have reached only two postseasons in the 2010s, and both losses seem worse than the numbers detail. In 2015, the Mets blew multiple ninth-inning leads in a five-game World Series loss. The next year, Noah Syndergaard threw seven shutout innings in the wild-card game, but Madison Bumgarner threw nine scoreless while Jeurys Familia allowed a three-run Conor Gillaspie homer in the ninth.
19. Chicago Cubs—30.0 points
The Cubs sandwiched their World Series win with NLCS losses in 2015 and 2017, but they were clearly outmatched in both series and won one game total. In the 2018 wild-card game, though, which the Cubs played in only after they lost a divisional tiebreaker to Milwaukee, Chicago lost on a 13th-inning single by Rockie Tony Wolters, who had been a .170 hitter in the regular season.
18. Kansas City Royals—31.7 points
The Royals lost one series in the 2010s, when Bumgarner stranded Alex Gordon at third, up one run, in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the World Series in Kansas City. But a year later, Kansas City won the title, so any previous pain must have dissipated in that moment.
17. Detroit Tigers—33.1 points
Here’s an example of the Comeback scores not telling the whole story: The 2014 Tigers lost to Baltimore in a sweep despite the following pitching matchups:
Max Scherzer vs. Chris Tillman
Justin Verlander vs. Wei-Yin Chen
David Price vs. Bud Norris
The Tigers receive zero points for that series because their win expectancy never rose above 50 percent, but losing those games was still a disaster.
Not as disastrous as what happened the year before, though. In the 2013 ALCS, Detroit won Game 1 in Boston, then led Game 2 by four runs until a David Ortiz grand slam sent outfielder Torii Hunter sprawling face-first into the Boston bullpen. The Tigers eventually lost the series in six games despite their starters allowing a combined nine earned runs in 39 1/3 innings—a 2.06 ERA.
16. Baltimore Orioles—36.1 points
Two Baltimore losses stand out. In the 2012 ALDS against the Yankees, the Orioles were set to take a 2-1 series lead until Jim Johnson, who led the majors with 51 saves that year, allowed a pinch-hit, ninth-inning Raúl Ibañez home run; three frames later, Ibañez bashed another homer to win the game, and CC Sabathia eventually threw nine strong innings in Game 5 to drag the Yankees to the next round.
The worst came in the 2016 wild-card game, though, when Zack Britton—who generated Cy Young and even MVP buzz that year with a 0.54 ERA and perfect 47-for-47 save conversion total—never pitched in extra innings, and Ubaldo Jiménez allowed a walk-off Edwin Encarnación blast.
15. Pittsburgh Pirates—37.3 points
Pittsburgh’s playoff pain is less concentrated in a single moment than a series of feeble offensive performances in important moments. In consecutive years, the Pirates lost wild-card games via complete-game shutouts (to Bumgarner and Jake Arrieta). And in the 2013 NLDS, Pittsburgh led two games to one, with all sorts of narrative momentum in its first playoff appearance in decades—and then scored two total runs in games 4 and 5 as Michael Wacha and Adam Wainwright dazzled on the mound.
14. Philadelphia Phillies—41.0 points
The 2011 Phillies won the most games in franchise history (102) and boasted maybe the best starting rotation the major leagues have ever seen. Because of how baseball functions, they lost to the Cardinals in Round 1. After winning Game 1, they led 4-0 in the second inning of Game 2 with Cliff Lee on the mound—only to be BABIPed in a 5-4 loss. Then, after winning Game 3, they led 2-0 in the first inning of Game 4 with Roy Oswalt on the mound—only for pre-hero David Freese to hit a two-run double and two-run homer, and the Cardinals’ beloved rally squirrel to swing the series St. Louis’s way. In Game 5 in Philadelphia, the Cardinals scored one run before making an out, and that was enough support for Chris Carpenter, who outdueled Roy Halladay with a complete-game three-hit shutout.
13. Cincinnati Reds—43.4 points
The actor: Reds catcher Ryan Hanigan
The backstory: Cincinnati lost the 2012 NLDS slowly, and then all at once. The slow part: The Reds led the Giants 2-0 in the 2012 NLDS, only for San Francisco to win the next two games—both in Cincinnati, one in the 10th inning thanks to a passed ball and error.
The scene: Here’s when the loss came together all at once. Buster Posey crushed a grand slam early in Game 5.
The Oscar-winning performance:
12. Minnesota Twins—52.0 points
Poor Minnesota, cursed to forever play, and lose every game against, the Yankees in October.
11. Tampa Bay Rays—57.0 points
No Rays loss registers as particularly regrettable; though they lost two ALDS Game 5s this decade, they didn’t lead in either one, including against Houston this week. Tampa Bay’s worst squandered chance came in the 2011 ALDS, when the wild-card Rays, fresh off the joy of “Game 162,” took Game 1 in Texas and led 3-0 early in Game 2. Alas, the Rangers scored seven straight runs to even the series, then won both games in Tampa by dueling 4-3 scores.
10. Houston Astros—71.1 points
In the entirety of MLB history, not just this decade, only three teams have lost a series after holding a 99 percent chance to win. The 1986 Angels led Boston three games to one, then surrendered a three-run ninth-inning lead in Game 5 before dropping games 6 and 7. The 1986 Red Sox led the Mets three games to two and held a two-run lead in the 10th inning of Game 6, with two outs and no men on, before losing in evidently cursed fashion.
And the 2015 Astros, on the cusp of becoming the Super Astros, led Kansas City two games to one in the ALDS and opened a four-run lead in Game 4 at home. But in the eighth inning, Kansas City hit five consecutive singles, capitalized on a brutal Carlos Correa error, and won the series two days later. As well as the worst series loss of the decade by comeback score, this defeat also gave Houston the worst single-game playoff collapse of the 2010s. Here is every postseason game this decade in which a team lost after holding a 95 percent chance to win (with the losing team listed first):
- Astros vs. Royals, 2015 ALDS Game 4 (peak win probability of 98.5 percent)
- Giants vs. Cubs, 2016 ALDS Game 4 (97.7)
- Dodgers vs. Cardinals, 2014 NLDS Game 1 (97.6)
- Tigers vs. Red Sox, 2013 ALCS Game 2 (97.0)
- Athletics vs. Royals, 2014 wild-card game (97.0)
- Nationals vs. Giants, 2014 NLDS Game 2 (96.8)
- Rangers vs. Yankees, 2010 ALCS Game 1 (96.6)
- Nationals vs. Cardinals, 2012 NLDS Game 5 (96.3)
- Giants vs. Braves, 2010 NLDS Game 2 (96.1)
- Rangers vs. Cardinals, 2011 World Series Game 6 (95.8)
- Dodgers vs. Red Sox, 2018 World Series Game 4 (95.0)
9. New York Yankees—75.5 points
Regardless of their ranking, the Yankees will receive no sympathy, and their very ranking reflects a decade of decently painful playoff losses more than anything especially upsetting. In the 2017 ALCS, they squandered a 3-2 ALCS lead, but that defeat came only after an exhilarating October. Otherwise, the Yankees’ worst playoff moment came in the 2012 ALCS, when Derek Jeter fractured his ankle in Game 1 and the club proceeded to lose in a muted sweep.
8. Milwaukee Brewers—81.2 points
As far as home losses in Game 7 of a league championship series go, it’s hard to grow too riled up about the end to the Brewers’ 2018 playoff run. That’s not the case with this year’s wild-card loss, from just last week: In the eighth inning, Milwaukee had an 87 percent chance of victory—and that’s using generic win expectancy numbers, which don’t account for the fact that Josh Hader was on the mound for the Brewers. But a bit of replay strangeness (Hader hit Michael A. Taylor with a one-out pitch, or did he?), batted-ball misfortune (Ryan Zimmerman poked a broken-bat single), and terribly timed fielding (Trent Grisham’s error on a Juan Soto single) all conspired to hand Milwaukee a sudden loss.
7. Cleveland Indians—84.5 points
In 2017, Cleveland lost a 2-0 series lead to New York when staff ace Corey Kluber collapsed, allowing nine runs in 6 1/3 innings over two games, including a losing Game 5 effort. Somehow, that performance wasn’t as painful as the previous postseason: In 2016, Cleveland became the first team since the 1985 Cardinals to blow a 3-1 World Series lead, and the first since the 1979 Orioles to blow a 3-1 World Series lead and lose Game 7 at home. Most crushing of all, the city lost the ability to make “blew a 3-1 lead” jokes just months after earning the right in the NBA Finals.
6. St. Louis Cardinals—95.5 points
Yeah, this ranking seems weird. The Cardinals don’t lose in painful ways; they cause painful losses for others! But the 2012 version actually came closer to making the World Series, only to fail, than any other team this decade. They led the Giants 3-1 in the series, then put runners on second and third with no outs early in Game 5, with a seemingly washed Barry Zito on the mound. Yet Zito escaped the jam unscathed and the Giants steamrolled St. Louis, winning Games 5-7 by a combined score of 20-1.
The Cardinals also lost a number of playoff games this decade in incredibly bizarre ways. In the 2013 World Series, Kolten Wong was picked off at first base for the final out. In the 2014 NLCS, St. Louis lost one game on a “walk-off” error when Randy Choate threw away a sacrifice bunt, then lost the series-clinching contest when manager Mike Matheny summoned Michael Wacha in a tie game. Wacha hadn’t pitched in the entire postseason and promptly allowed a Travis Ishikawa home run.
5. Oakland Athletics—96.8 points
Billy Beane’s team has lost nine consecutive winner-take-all games, dating back to 2000, and is 0-5 in such games this decade. The coup de grace came in the 2014 wild-card thriller, which Oakland led 7-3 in the eighth inning, and then 8-7 in the 12th inning, before ultimately succumbing to the irrepressible might of Royals October magic.
4. Atlanta Braves—100.9 points
Atlanta has now lost five series in the 2010s, and besides the 2018 NLDS against the Dodgers—who clearly outplayed Atlanta from start to finish—each defeat carried its own special flavor of misery. To wit:
In the 2010 NLDS, the Braves lost in four games to San Francisco. All three losses came by a single run; in both Atlanta home games, a late Braves error helped turn an Atlanta lead into a deficit. Poor Brooks Conrad.
In the 2012 wild-card game, fans hurled trash onto the field and delayed the game for 19 minutes as they expressed their displeasure with a key infield fly ruling that went against the home team.
In the 2013 NLDS, Craig Kimbrel watched from the bullpen as Dan Carpenter allowed the series-losing home run in Dodger Stadium.
And in the 2019 NLDS, Atlanta blew eighth-inning leads in Game 1 and Game 4, then allowed 10 runs in the decisive Game 5 before even getting a chance to bat.
3. Texas Rangers—110.8 points
Texas is one of just two teams, along with the 1986 Red Sox, to come within one strike of winning the World Series and lose—and the Rangers did it in consecutive innings. To lose the 2011 World Series, they had to: lose a two-run lead with two outs and two strikes in the ninth inning of Game 6, with electric young closer Neftalí Feliz on the mound; lose another two-run lead in the 10th; lose the game in the 11th; and lose Game 7 the next day. They checked off every one of those wretched boxes.
Texas actually has two of the 10 worst playoff series losses of the decade, by comeback score: the World Series and the 2015 ALDS against Toronto. In the latter series, they won two games on the road, lost two games at home, and led Game 5 3-2 before three errors and Bautista’s home run swung the series in Toronto’s favor.
Overall, here are the 10 worst series losses of the decade by comeback score (with the losing team listed first):
- Astros vs. Royals, 2015 ALDS (peak win probability of 99.2 percent)
- Rangers vs. Cardinals, 2011 World Series (97.6)
- A’s vs. Royals, 2014 wild-card game (97.0)
- Nationals vs. Cardinals, 2012 NLDS (96.6)
- Reds vs. Giants, 2012 NLDS (93.4)
- Cardinals vs. Giants, 2012 NLCS (91.8)
- Indians vs. Cubs, 2016 World Series (91.3)
- A’s vs. Tigers, 2013 ALDS (91.2)
- Rangers vs. Blue Jays, 2015 ALDS (89.6)
- Braves vs. Cardinals, 2019 NLDS (89.6)
2. Washington Nationals—114.1 points
The Nationals were no. 1 on this list before Wednesday, as their playoff defeats this decade spiraled into self-parody. The devastation began in 2012, when the Nationals famously held Stephen Strasburg out of the playoffs to limit his season workload. Even without Strasburg, Washington still should have won its first series: In the ninth inning of Game 5 at home, they led the Cardinals 7-5 with two strikes and two outs, twice, but closer Drew Storen walked both Yadier Molina and David Freese on full counts. Then Daniel Descalso singled up the middle, Pete Kozma singled down the line, and the Nationals were done. At the time, this loss represented the worst collapse (by comeback score) in a winner-take-all game in MLB playoff history. (Now, that honor belongs to the 2014 Athletics in the wild-card contest.)
The frustration continued every time Washington won nearly 100 games and the division. In 2014, 2016, and 2017, eight of the club’s nine playoff losses came by a single run. The first of that trio included an 18-inning game against the Giants, in which Storen relieved Jordan Zimmermann one out shy of a complete-game shutout only to cough up the lead, and a series-losing wild pitch. The second and third both saw the Nationals lose leads with Max Scherzer on the mound in Game 5 at home.
Finally, in 2019, the Nationals are earning redemption for their previous failures, erasing late leads in sudden-death games with Hader and Kershaw on the mound. Speaking of Kershaw ...
1. Los Angeles Dodgers—139.8 points
Wednesday’s loss pushed the Dodgers to the no. 1 spot; they top the list both because they have the most playoff eliminations of the decade (seven) and because each one hurt. Most notably:
In the 2014 NLDS against St. Louis, Kershaw gave up a 6-2 lead in the seventh inning of Game 1. (This was the third-worst single-game playoff collapse of the 2010s.) In that same series in Game 4, Kershaw pitched six brilliant innings on short rest, only to fail again in the seventh inning as Matt Adams’s homer sent St. Louis to the next round.
In 2015, like 2019, the Dodgers lost Game 5 of the NLDS at home. This time, Zack Greinke allowed a tiebreaking Daniel Murphy home run in the sixth.
In 2017, L.A. lost another winner-take-all game at home, when Yu Darvish couldn’t make it out of the second inning of Game 7 of the World Series. Previously, L.A. lost Game 2 in extra innings after Kenley Jansen blew a save, then lost a rollercoaster Game 5 in Houston when Kershaw, Kenta Maeda, and Brandon Morrow all frittered away leads before Jansen lost the game in the 10th.
In 2018, Jansen blew two more saves in the World Series, then Kershaw allowed three homers in Game 5 as Boston clinched a title at Dodger Stadium.
So in four of the last five seasons, the Dodgers have been eliminated from the playoffs at home. Three of those games were winner-take-all contests; in two, the Dodgers held a lead. Was 2019’s loss the most painful of the bunch? Perhaps—it involved the nadir of the Kershaw playoff experience, a befuddling managerial decision, and the highest peak win probability of any Dodgers series loss this decade.
But cheer up, Dodgers fans. There’s always next year—and, presumably, a newly excruciating manner in which to abandon all October dreams.
