The Los Angeles Angels are falling apart at an alarming rate.

With hopes of making the playoffs for the first time in nine years in 2014, the Angels retained Shohei Ohtani and made a major splash in the trade market, only to find themselves on a losing streak.

The Angels dropped a 3-2 home game to the Seattle Mariners on June 6 at Angels Stadium. It was their fifth straight loss since the trade deadline against the Atlanta Braves on Nov. 2. At 56 wins, the Angels’ hard-earned five-game winning streak is on the verge of collapse. It’s been 18 days since the Angels have had a win-loss margin of “0” since the 19th of last month.

The third-place American League (AL) wild-card Toronto Blue Jays defeated the Boston Red Sox 5-4 on Sunday to extend their lead over the Angels to six games. Using Toronto’s current winning percentage (.554) as the cutoff for the third wild card, the Angels would need to win 34 of their remaining 50 games, or a .680 or better winning percentage going forward, to make it to fall ball.

That’s virtually impossible. Fangraphs gives the Angels a 3.4% chance of making the playoffs. That’s the lowest it’s been all season.

The Angels went 9-3 in their first 12 games of the second half to pull within three games of Toronto, five games over the winning percentage. They added some big-name pieces via trade, including Chicago White Sox right-hander Lucas Giolito, right-handed set-up man Reynaldo Lopez, and Colorado Rockies first baseman CJ Cron and outfielder Randall Grichuk, but then dropped three straight in their next nine games to go 2-7.

The team’s efforts to fill the void left by Mike Trout, acquire a bat to back up Ohtani, and bolster the starting rotation and bullpen have not paid off. The more they lose, the more frustrated Ohtani will be, and the more he’ll want out. The more they lose, the more frustrated they will be, and the more they will want to leave.

Local media outlets have also made this point 꽁머니.

The Athletic columnist Jim Borden wrote on Friday, “The Angels will be very sorry if Ohtani signs with another team this winter. They should have at least waited until the trade deadline to evaluate what they could get in return for Ohtani. But the Angels chose to take the huge risk of losing Ohtani in free agency, and the only thing the Angels would receive in return is a draft pick.

Borden is an on-field columnist who served as manager of the Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals, and his intuition and insight are unrivaled. In other words, if the Angels don’t re-sign Ohtani this offseason, there’s a good chance they’ll not only regret it, but they’ll be forced into a complete rebuild.

As Sports Illustrated (SI) put it, “Borden has a point. Let’s say you’re heavily compensated with draft picks. It’s much harder to scout and develop top amateur prospects than it is to compensate players in the minor leagues for their major league preparation,” and emphasized that “for now, the Angels seem to have missed a chance to acquire one of their top prospects in the hopes of keeping Ohtani happy.

Hindsight is 20/20, and regretting the past only hurts as much as it can’t be undone.