Wake Me Up When September Ends: Meltdown Edition

The end of September means the end of another great season. We saw some great comebacks from teams like the St. Louis Cardinals to make a push into the postseason. Sometimes, however, the comebacks are made possible by a late-season blowup from a team on top. Here are some of the worst collapses in the last month of the season.

1964 Philadelphia Phillies

The Philadelphia Phillies looked to have turned things around after finishing 12 games back of first in 1963. The Phillies spent the first half of the 1964 season battling for the top with the San Francisco Giants and eventually the Cincinnati Reds. Meanwhile the St. Louis Cardinals were slowly creeping up the standings from fifth place.

By August, the Phillies started to break away from the pack and at one point held a 7 ½-game lead. Despite losing the last two series in August, the Phillies were still up by 5 ½ games. The losses didn’t seem to affect the standings as no one could touch them. The Phillies were still up by 5 ½ with 12 games left in the season, and then the wheels fell off.

The Phillies started their last homestand off by getting swept in three games to the Reds. Then the fifth place Milwaukee Braves won four straight to knock the Phillies out of first. While everything was going wrong in Philadelphia, the Cardinals had won five straight and were tied for second with the Phillies. St. Louis hosted the former NL leaders and brought out the brooms giving the Phillies their third series sweep in a row.

The Phillies finished in second and the Cardinals won the pennant and eventually the World Series.

1969 Chicago Cubs

Thanks to the curse of the Billy Goat, there are many moments in the Chicago Cubs history in which the franchise had a little (or a lot) of bad luck come their way. The ending of the 1969 season was one of the significant moments during the curse era.

The NL East seemed to be wrapped up right from the beginning as the Cubs started 11-1 and never looked back. A seven-game win streak to start August gave Chicago a nine-game cushion in the division.

The Cubs seemed to be on cruise control towards a trip to the team’s first playoff appearance since 1945 with five straight wins to end August the way they started it. However, September was the complete opposite. The Cubs followed a two-game series split with the Cincinnati Reds by losing seven straight to the Pittsburgh Pirates, New York Mets, and Philadelphia Phillies. In the middle of the losing stretch was also the infamous “black cat game” in which a black cat walked around the Cubs’ dugout during a game against the Mets. Many say the Cubs were doomed because of it.

 On Sept. 10, the Cubs were not in the lead for the first time all season. It got worse for the Cubbies, as they lost 17 of 25 games in September. Despite finishing eight games back of first, the Cubs only fell to second place. The Mets went on to win the NL and the first World Series in the franchise’s eight years of existence.

This might be one of the worst moments in the Cubs’ history. Sure, the Steve Bartman play was terrible on many levels especially since it happened in the playoffs, but the end of the 1969 season was a tragedy which took place over the course of a whole month.

1978 Boston Red Sox

Staying on the theme of curses, the Boston Red Sox also had their fair share of late-season breakdowns before they started winning championships in the 2000s. The 1978 season saw a strong Red Sox team looking to go back to the World Series after losing in seven games to the Cincinnati Reds in 1975. The pitching staff featured SP Dennis Eckersley and SP Luis Tiant, as C Carlton Fisk and LF Jim Rice brought the pop on the offensive side. The Red Sox had a commanding lead in the AL East by June and at one point led by 10 games. After a seven-game winning streak to end August, the Red Sox had a significant advantage over the rest of the division.

Things started to slow down for Boston when September hit as they lost eight of 10 to start the month including a four-game sweep to the rival New York Yankees. The Red Sox immediately lost the lead, and a series loss to the Yankees at home pushed them to 3 ½ back. While it may not seem like a big gap, the Red Sox couldn’t recapture the lead even with a seven-game win streak to end the season.

The fact that the Red Sox blew the division lead to their mortal enemy makes it even worse. Also, to all the 21st century Yankee and Red Sox fans who think this sounds familiar; you are right. In 2005, Boston blew a four-game lead as late as Sept. 6 to let the Yankees come back and win the division. A small consolation for New York, since the Red Sox won the World Series the year before. 

1995 Los Angeles Angels

For this next one let’s set the scene. The year is 1995. Baseball is back from the strike-shortened season. OF Barry Bonds is starting to tear up the Bay Area. And according to “Angels in the Outfield,” (spoiler alert) the California Angels won the pennant. In real life it seemed as though the real Angels were going to prove the movie right. Unfortunately, the two seasons played out in reverse.

The Angels were at the top of the AL West right from the start and built a comfortable lead in late July with an eight-game win streak. By August the Angels were up by 11 games. The end of the month was drastically different as they took a nine-game losing streak into the first week of September. Somehow even with a 67-53 record the Angels were still up by 5 ½ games. The entire division was very weak, and the Angels seemed to have got through the tough stretch. Then they lost nine-straight games. You read that right. The Angels lost nine more games in a row in the middle of September.

The Halos lost 21 of 26 games putting them in second place. Even with all of the losing, they were only two games back and finished the season one game back from the Seattle Mariners who finished 79-66. The Mariners beat the New York Yankees in the ALDS, and lost 4-2 against the Cleveland Indians in the ALCS.

The Angels had another year of late season disappointment in 1998 before winning the club’s first World Series in 2002.          

2018 Chicago Cubs

The Cubs are back! This time, the curse is broken, and they are completely dominating the NL Central. In 2018, Joe Maddon is still at the helm with all of your favorite characters: 1B Anthony Rizzo, 2B Javier Baez, and 3B Kris Bryant (sorry Cubs fans).

It took a few months for the Cubs to get back on top of the division, and a seven-game win streak at the end of August put them firmly in first. On Sept. 3, the Milwaukee Brewers beat the Cubs 4-3 to get within four games of the lead. After the game, Cubs pitcher Cole Hamels said he didn’t think the two teams were really rivals because Chicago had been much better in recent history. There is no way that could come back to bite him, right?

The next week, Milwaukee won two out of three in Chicago to cut the lead to one. The Cubs managed to hang on all the way to the last two games of the season but suffered a costly 2-1 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals to tie them with Milwaukee. It all came down to a game 163 where the Brewers prevailed and won the NL Central. The Cubs then lost in the Wild Card game to the Colorado Rockies ending what could have been another great season.

Seeing what has happened with the Cubs since the Hamels incident could mean there is a new curse in Chi Town. Let’s get #ColeHamelsCurse trending on Twitter. 

2020 Chicago White Sox

There was a lot of action in the 2020 season despite it only being 60 games. The Cardinals almost had to play the majority of their season in three weeks, the Miami Marlins entire farm system got them in the playoffs and the Dodgers actually won the World Series. What might fly under the radar, however, is the Chicago White Sox breakdown in September.

The White Sox had the AL MVP 1B Jose Abréu, superstar SS Tim Anderson, healthy CF Luis Robert and LF Eloy Jiménez, and ace SP Lucas Giolito. The AL Central has been a three-team race for a few years and in 2020 the Cleveland Indians began the demolition of their core roster which left just the Minnesota Twins to contend with.

In the beginning of September, Chicago won four straight to hang on to first. They tacked on another six straight to hold onto the lead. But everything was erased just a week later with a six-game losing streak. Minnesota snatched the lead with five games left and the White Sox couldn’t recover. The rough September didn’t end in the regular season, though, as they were bounced from the first round of the modified playoffs in three games to the Oakland Athletics. Although the breakdown wasn’t as dramatic as previous ones, it was still crazy to see a such a turn happen even in a shorter season.

While there were a few collapses in this season from teams like the Mets, Red Sox and Padres, how do they compare to these ones? Which one was the worst? Who was more detrimental to the Cubs: Cole Hamels or the black cat? Let us know in the comments.