The Arizona Diamondbacks lost to the San Francisco Giants (SF 10, ARI 3) on Thursday afternoon, running their road-game losing streak to 23, the longest in Major League Baseball history. The record had previously been 22, held by both the 1943 Philadelphia Athletics and the 1963 New York Mets.
The D-Backs’ most recent road victory came on April 25 against the Atlanta Braves. That game was memorable for other reasons, as it was the contest in which Madison Bumgarner threw an unofficial no-hitter. (MLB doesn’t recognize no-nos thrown as part of seven-inning doubleheaders to be legitimate no-hitters.)
As a result of Thursday’s loss, the Diamondbacks have now lost 14 games in a row overall, as well as 28 of their past 30 and 37 of their past 42. On the season, they’re now 20-50, with a 9-31 mark on the road.
The Diamondbacks are, remarkably enough, not the only MLB team going through a dry spell on the road. As our Mike Axisa noted earlier Thursday, the Baltimore Orioles have dropped 19 consecutive road games, positioning them to challenge the aforementioned Athletics for the longest streak in American League history. Meanwhile, the Texas Rangers only recently snapped a 16-game road losing streak.
Our Matt Snyder addressed the trend of poor road performances on Wednesday, noting: “The bottom line is that while it might look like home teams are playing better during the pandemic than before, it’s more a product of this group of atrocious road teams skewing the overall record.”
The Diamondbacks will now return to Arizona to begin a six-game homestand against the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Milwaukee Brewers. Afterward, the D-Backs will have a six-game road trip with stops in San Diego against the Padres and St. Louis versus the Cardinals. Sheer probability suggests they’ll win one of those games, but that hasn’t helped them much to date.
