The 'bad for baseball' Dodgers are just bad ... for now

A plane flew over Wrigley Field ahead of Tarik Skubal‘s Los Angeles Dodgers debut on Tuesday, Aug. 4. It was supposed to read, “The Dodgers ruined baseball”… if it weren’t upside down.

The fumbled stunt, funded by sports gambling company Underdog, was intended as a jab at the back-to-back World Series champions — and their projected $322 million payroll — in the wake of their blockbuster trade for the best pitcher in baseball.

“We just want to say what every fan is already thinking,” Underdog said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports. And in that aspect, they accomplished just that. Just look at the replies under Jeff Passan’s tweet when he broke news of the trade on Saturday night.

“They ruined the sport I love,” wrote @murphyJacks0n.

“We need a lockout,” @owennoble81 tweeted. “This is crazy.”

And from several more accounts, “the Dodgers have ruined baseball.”

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Milwaukee Brewers catcher Gary Sanchez wears a special chest protector to commemorate Jackie Robinson Day during the game against the Toronto Blue Jays at American Family Field on April 15, 2026.

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The Pittsburgh Pirates’ Konnor Griffin celebrates with a traffic cone after making his major-league debut in a 5-4 defeat of the Baltimore Orioles at PNC Park on April 3, 2026.

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Cleveland Guardians players warm up as the launch of NASA’s Artemis II is shown on the center-field video board at Dodger Stadium on April 1, 2026.

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Two F-35C planes from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron NINE Detachment Edwards Air Force Base perform a flyover before the Opening Day game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium on March 26, 2026.

Dave Roberts sat behind the podium at Dodger Stadium on Sunday, Aug. 2. The Dodgers had just acquired Skubal in exchange for prospects Zyhir Hope, River Ryan and Brady Smith the night before. The dust had yet to settle on the bombshell trade that added the reigning back-to-back Cy Young winner to the back-to-back World Series champions — and to a rotation that, when healthy, includes 2025 World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto, two-time Cy Young winner Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Shohei Ohtani when Roberts was asked by legendary Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke if he felt “unbeatable.”

“We gotta play well,” Roberts said. “Baseball’s baseball. We gotta play the games, but I like our club.”

But in the four games since acquiring Skubal, the Dodgers have done anything but.

They dropped Sunday’s series finale to the Boston Red Sox in a sloppy 8-4 blowout at home before flying to Chicago for a three-game series against the Cubs. After dropping each of the first two games in similar uninspired fashion — including Skubal’s debut on Tuesday — LA found itself again in an early hole at Wrigley Field on Wednesday.

Eric Lauer, who has been a stabilizing presence in the rotation since his arrival via trade from the Toronto Blue Jays in May in the wake of injuries to Glasnow and Snell, was knocked around for six earned runs — tying his total from the entire month of July — on 11 hits and he gave up two homers to Pete Crow-Armstrong in four innings. This time, however, the Dodgers finally showed fight with a five-run eighth inning thanks to a pair of big swings from Ohtani and Max Muncy. Mookie Betts also had an encouraging 4-for-5 day at the plate, none bigger than his line-drive single to left field earlier in the frame to advance Kyle Tucker to second and set the table for Muncy.

But their early struggles proved too much to overcome. The Cubs held on for a 7-6 win, cementing the second consecutive series in which the Dodgers have been swept and pushing their season-worst losing streak to six games.

“I liked the fight,” Roberts told reporters postgame. “It sucks to lose. It absolutely does, but we’re going to win again.”

A baseball season is a rollercoaster. No team, not even the Dodgers and their seemingly infinite money, cruises its way through 162 games. The Dodgers are in a slump, a bad one, but nothing more. They’ll get Snell back in the rotation sometime in the near future, and Glasnow’s timetable isn’t far behind now that he’s begun a rehab assignment with Single-A Ontario. August is not October.

That’s exactly what fans of MLB’s other 29 teams are afraid of.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The ‘bad for baseball’ Dodgers are just bad … for now