The only thing that is keeping me from outright misery regarding the terrible "potential" collapse my Blue Jays are currently in the midst of is admiring the wonder of the magnitude of the Detroit Tigers collapse who had a 15 game lead in the AL central division just 5 weeks ago. They now trail the Cleveland Guardians by 1 game with 4 to go and the Guardians also hold the tiebreaker.
Here are some other epic MLB collapses:
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1951 Dodgers blew a 13 game mid August lead to lose the division to the surging SF Giants. In fairness to the Dodgers is wasn't so much as collapse as the Giants playing out of this world ball. The Dodgers actually had a winning record over the final month and a half but the Giants went 37-7 to overtake them.
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1964 Phillies only blew a 7.5 game lead with 5 weeks to go in the season which doesn't seem that impressive until you account for their great finale. With still a 6.5 game lead and 12 games to go they lost 10 games in a row and that poof the lead was gone.
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1987 Blue Jays blew a 3.5 game division lead with 7 games to go in spectacular fashion by losing all 7 games. Sigh at least this year isn't as bad as 87. It was a sad time in Blue Jays land.
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2009 Tigers blew a 7 game lead with 25 games to go. Actually not that bad considering the rest of the list but I just want to further kick the Tigers while they are down because it makes me feel better.
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2011 Boston Red Sox blew an 9 game Wild Card lead in September.
There are other dramatic ones but most of them stretch back to massive leads teams had halfway through the season. I really tried to hone in on the ones that came within the last 6 weeks of the year.
All is not lost for my Blue Jays or the Mets (who have been collapsing slowly for 4 months and barely hanging on to a playoff spot) or even the Tigers. With 4 games left a short winning streak can right all the embarrassing wrongs that have put them in this position. I am not counting on it though.
Sats for all,
GR