Or most consecutive losses followed by wins.
Out of The NBA,MLB,NHL,NFL College Football FBS or College Basketball DIV I
You’ll have to be more specific. Does 1 win followed by 20 losses beat 9 wins followed by 9 losses? The first is 21 matches, the second has the longer minimum streak of 9.
Also for NFL, college football, and NHL, you have to specify how to handle ties.
Not my OP, but it seems that the most interesting take on this would be to start with the 10 or 20 longest winning streaks in sports, and then see how long the losing streaks were that followed. I like your point, but I think two teams that hypothetically went
20 wins followed by 6 losses and
18 wins followed by 12 losses
is an event more difficult example. As you said, though, OP needs to clarify exactly what is being asked.
And since this thread was started 9 days ago; I’m guessing it’s going to die a slow death working it’s way to the bottom of active thread list.
queue The Price Is Right trombone failure music.
For me, to make sense, the best measure for this is by the length of the shorter streak (so 6 wins 5 losses trumps 12 wins 3 losses or whatever).
Not sure how to search for this; my first thought was the 1987 Baltimore Orioles, who were a terrible team but had an 11-game winning streak in the middle of the season; unfortunately, their win streak was bookended only by 1 loss beforehand and 2 losses afterwards.
Then I went looking at some baseball teams that I remember as having long winning streaks and turnaround seasons - the early 2000s Oakland A’s didn’t turn up anything (an 8 win, 3 loss streak and a 5 win, 4 loss streak were the best I could do). The 1990 Boston Red Sox managed to follow 10 straight wins with 3 straight losses.
Famous teams with winning records but notable losing streaks didn’t do much for me. The 2001 Yankees, who lost 7 straight games going into the playoffs but then won the series, actually had an 8 game losing streak counting the first game of the playoffs, but only managed 2 straight wins after that. The 1964 Phillies lost 10 games in a row down the stretch, then won 2 after they’d blown it. They won their first the following season, so thats lose 10, win 3. The 1995 California Angels didn’t turn up anything (in fact, in looking for them I found that the 96 and 97 Angels, both unmemorably mediocre teams, had won-6 lost-5 streaks or something like that, better than I’ve found on any memorable teams).
Finally I found the 1993 San Francisco Giants, who followed a late 8-game losing streak with a 4-game winning streak, and if you’re willing to broaden the definition a bit, they won 11 out of 12 following the 8-game losing streak.
The 2001 Yankees did NOT win the series.
One year the Brewers won the first N (14? I don’t remember) games, but then lost the same number.
Brian
Sorry, 2000.
1987, won 13 and then lost 12, all in the first quarter or so of the season, but not quite in a row. (They did manage a 6 game losing streak followed by a 6 game winning streak later in the same season).
Not what the OP is looking for but the 1916 New York Giants (mlb) started the season 2-13 and reeled off 17 straight wins. Later in the season they lost 14 of 19 and then won 26 straight games. They finished 4th (of 8th).
Last season the Minnesota Wild had a streak where they went 12-2. It was immediately followed up with a streak of 2-12.