We all know that baseball is a numbers game. Batting averages, ERA, launch angle, and exit velocity have helped define the sport in recent years, but peel back the stat sheets and you\u2019ll find something every ballplayer knows: baseball is also a game of rituals, charms, and the quiet fear of tempting fate. Don\u2019t mention the no-hitter. Don\u2019t step on the foul line. And if you\u2019ve been winning in the same pair of socks for a week straight\u2026 don\u2019t you dare wash them.<\/p>\n
Yet for all the routines meant to appease the baseball gods, some teams seem destined to draw their ire. And according to a recent study by Casino.ca<\/a>, the reigning back-to-back World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> were recently one of those teams.<\/p>\n Over seven full seasons of data (2017\u20132024), researchers tracked nine different types of misfortune\u2014from blown leads to bizarre plays to postseason heartbreaks. What they discovered won\u2019t shock many Dodgers who remember the team’s misfortunes prior to the 2024 and 2025 title seasons fans: <\/p>\n Los Angeles was ranked as the 2nd most cursed team in MLB, with a \u201ccurse score\u201d of 20.\u00a0<\/p>\n The league average?\u00a0<\/p>\n Just 13.<\/p>\n Only the Pittsburgh Pirates ranked higher than the mighty Dodgers.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Dodgers\u2019 Top Three Curses<\/p>\n So where do the Dodgers keep tripping over their own shoelaces?<\/p>\n Blown Leads (6): In games where Los Angeles held a lead of at least five runs, they somehow still found a way to lose. The kind of collapses that feel like they\u2019re written by ghosts. Take April 25, 2021, when a 7\u20131 lead against the Padres evaporated into an 8-7 loss in extra innings.<\/a> Or 2024, when a 9\u20134 edge over the Tigers turned into a gut-punch in the ninth<\/a>.<\/p>\n Past playoff Heartbreak (5): If October baseball feels like a haunted house for Dodgers fans, it\u2019s because the evidence is there. The 2017 World Series loss to the Astros<\/a> (now forever tainted by scandal). The 2018 defeat to Boston.<\/a> A stunning Game 5 loss to the Nationals in the 2019 NLDS<\/a>. Injuries derailing the 2021 NLCS against Atlanta<\/a>. And a string of shocking early exits to the Padres (2022) and Diamondbacks (2023), even when L.A. looked unbeatable on paper.<\/p>\n Controversial Calls & Bizarre Plays (6 total): Nothing twists the knife like losing control of the narrative. Missed calls, strange bounces, and once-in-a-lifetime bloopers have all chipped away at Dodgers\u2019 dreams. They don\u2019t happen often\u2014but they happen just enough to make you wonder if Chavez Ravine was built on cursed land.<\/a><\/p>\n A Pattern That Won\u2019t Go Away<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the cruel part: this isn\u2019t the story of a middling franchise desperate for scraps. The Dodgers are a regular season winning machine, They surpass 100 wins in a season so often it feels like routine. They\u2019ve won 12 of the last 13 NL West titles. Their farm system produces stars. Their front office spends smart and spends big. Their roster is always built to win.<\/p>\n And yet, that\u2019s what makes those past heartbreaks sting more. The better they are in the regular season, the sharper the sting when the postseason ghosts come calling.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not that Los Angeles can\u2019t win it all\u2014they did in 2020, in the most surreal, pandemic-shortened season baseball has ever seen. But for many, that championship exists with an asterisk, tucked away in a neutral-site bubble in Texas.<\/p>\n They exorcised many of those demons in 2024, where after falling down two games to one and staring elimination straight in the face against the rival San Diego Padres, they rallied in Games 4 and 5 to advance out of the division round. That comeback propelled their push to the World Series where they finally won their first full season crown since the 1988 Dodgers nearly 40 years prior.<\/a><\/p>\n Then, in 2025 they steamrolled through the National League playoffs before colliding with the Toronto Blue Jays in the World Series. Down three games to two, with the best-of-seven series shifting back to the North, the Dodgers had the unenviable task of winning back-to-back games at the Rogers Centre to repeat as Champions. <\/p>\n After hanging on by the skin of their teeth for a 3-1 victory in Game 6<\/a>, the Dodgers trailed 3-0 in the third inning of the do-or-die Game 7. Down to their final two outs in the ninth inning, the unlikely hero, Miguel Rojas hit a game-tying home run to send it to extra innings. From that point forward the supposedly “cursed” Dodgers had every opportunity to lose the Fall Classic<\/a>, but thanks to some stellar defense and a game-winning homer by Will Smith, Los Angeles went from cursed to first, by winning Game 7 by a score of 5-4,<\/a> becoming the first back-to-back champions in baseball since the New York Yankees 25 years prior. <\/p>\n Disappointing losses, but is it really a curse?<\/p>\n The Casino.ca<\/a> findings don\u2019t claim the Dodgers are doomed forever. What they do highlight is a trend: when the stakes are highest, when the games matter most, L.A. has been more snakebitten than most.<\/p>\n Blown leads. Bad calls. Injuries at the worst time. October heartbreaks aplenty.<\/p>\n Call it bad luck. Call it the randomness of baseball. Or call it a curse. Whatever name you give it, the Dodgers can\u2019t seem to shake it more times than not.<\/p>\n Final Inning<\/p>\n Baseball has always been a dance between skill and superstition. Numbers matter\u2014but so does timing, fate, and the occasional cruel twist of the game.<\/p>\n For Dodgers fans, the curse score is just another reminder of what they already know in their bones: October in Los Angeles isn\u2019t just about baseball. It\u2019s about bracing for ghosts.<\/p>\n The Red Sox lifted the curse of the Bambino after 86 years<\/a>. The Cubs lifted the curse of the billy goat after 108 years,<\/a> Hopefully, the Dodgers back-to-back World Series titles in 2024 and 2025, finally lifted the curse of 1988<\/a>, and lifted a lot of those spirts in the process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We all know that baseball is a numbers game. 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