No one is on a 100-win pace. What’s happened to the super teams, and whose struggles will pay off?

José Alvarado induced a game-ending double play, and the Phillies shook hands. It was July 11. With 57% of the season complete, after sweeping the Dodgers, they were 61-32, floating along on course for 106 victories.

Thirty-seven days later, they screeched to a 94-win pace.

“Winning 100 games,” Kyle Schwarber said Wednesday, before banging the grand slam that might have stopped the Phillies’ worst slide since the Gabe Kapler years, “I don’t think it should be [considered] normal.”

It’s not. At least not this season, and maybe not for a while.

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The Phillies, Yankees, Orioles, and Dodgers were on track at various points to eclipse 100 wins before falling off. The Astros followed a 25-33 start with a 40-22 surge that equates to 104 wins over a full season. The Padres treaded water at 50-49 before blazing out of the All-Star break at 19-4.

But entering the weekend, here was the total number of teams on pace for 100 wins: zero.

Unless a team gets hot again down the stretch — and based on the projection models at FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus, none will — this will mark the first season since 2014 that there isn’t a 100-game winner. And although there have been other years like this — the 2011 Phillies were the only 100-win team from 2010 to 2014 — it’s a departure from the last six full seasons, when 18 teams hung triple digits in the win column.

Maybe none of this means anything, especially because regular-season dominance hasn’t translated into World Series trophies in the wild-card era. Since 1995, 40 teams won 100 or more games. Only 12 made it through to the World Series; only six won the whole thing.

But the lengthy tailspins of one contender after another — the Phillies saw an 11-24 malaise from the Yankees, who saw the Orioles’ 8-13 toe stub, and raised them both an 8-18 doozy — have raised eyebrows around the sport.

Is there an elite super team in the bunch? And if not, is it simply one of those years, or representative of a larger trend?

A sampling of opinions this week raised a few theories, though nothing that qualifies as a definitive explanation. An executive from a National League team suggested it may be “mostly random,” while also agreeing with an American League executive’s hypothesis about the balanced schedule.

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Until last season, teams faced each division opponent 19 times, and most divisions usually have a token tomato can. When the Red Sox won 108 games in 2018, they went 16-3 against the 115-loss Orioles. A year earlier, the 104-win Dodgers had a 13-6 feast of the Padres, who lost 91 games.

Now, though, division rivals meet only 13 times. The Phillies, then, have 12 fewer opportunities to potentially inflate their record by bullying the Marlins and Nationals.

Maybe it’s that simple. But not to a scout from an NL team, who pointed to an undeniable epidemic of pitching injuries within the sport. In 2019, 112 starting pitchers went on the injured list, based on data compiled by Spotrac. The number rose to 178 in 2021 (after baseball’s return from the 60-game pandemic season) and dipped only marginally to 161 and 153 in 2022 and 2023, respectively.

This season, arms are breaking at a record pace, with 151 starters on the IL through Thursday, according to Spotrac.

And as the scout noted, “The best teams are not exempt.”

The Dodgers have missed Walker Buehler, Clayton Kershaw, and, since the middle of June, $325 million righty Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Yankees ace Gerrit Cole is still rounding into form after a spring-training elbow problem. Braves ace Spencer Strider, like Orioles righty Kyle Bradish, had Tommy John surgery; Grayson Rodriguez is out for Baltimore, too.

Ranger Suárez’s absence has equalized the Phillies’ season. They were 61-32 with a league-leading 3.17 starters’ ERA entering his July 12 start against the A’s, when he reported lower back soreness. He has started once since out of an abundance of caution but also to help manage his workload.

Not coincidentally, the Phillies entered the weekend with a 10-18 record and a 4.81 starters’ ERA since July 12. So, yes, they will welcome back Suárez next week in Kansas City.

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Injuries to starters have a way of leveling the playing field. But a second NL scout suggested the expanded playoff format has done the same by keeping more teams in the wild-card mix.

Last season, the Diamondbacks won 84 games, sneaked into the playoffs as the third NL wild card, and went on a three-week roll to the World Series. In 2022, the 87-win Phillies were the last NL team into the October tournament and the last one out.

With an additional entrance to the party, fringy teams are waiting longer to stop pushing on the door. Most executives, including the Phillies’ Dave Dombrowski, characterized the trade deadline as an extreme buyer’s market. And if fewer clubs are stripping their roster at the end of July, the competition figures to be more balanced through August and September.

Further, the projection models used by every data-driven front office indicate a mid-80s win total will put a team in the wild-card mix. And as the fate of recent 100-game winners proves, regular-season dominance isn’t required for a deep October run. So, as the second NL scout suggested, some clubs are intentionally targeting 87 wins instead of 100.

That isn’t the case with the Phillies. Or the Dodgers and Yankees, for that matter. Not only do they have top-five payrolls, but each is projected to surpass the second luxury-tax threshold of $257 million.

If they aren’t super teams, their money isn’t going as far as it should.

» READ MORE: Keeping their starting pitchers healthy is key to a World Series run. Here’s how the Phillies plan to do it.

“I think winning 100 games is a really cool accomplishment, but within a season,” said Schwarber, who came back from knee surgery to win the World Series with a 2016 Cubs team that also won 103 games. “Do you want to expect to walk into the season winning 100 games? As a player, absolutely. Because that means you’re doing a lot of really good things over the course of a year to win a lot of games.

“But also, too, the cliché quote of, ‘It’s a long season.’ Right? Yeah, it is a long season. Teams go through it. You just want to find a way to make those lows as short as possible, which, that can be tough to find your way out of it. But you go through it, and [if] you find your way out on the other side, you can be better for it.”

That said, which of the potential super teams will be better for having struggled more than they ever expected? Here’s the biggest question facing each over the final six weeks of the season:

World Series odds: 15.6%, via FanGraphs

Big question: Can they avoid running out of starting pitching ... again?

Mookie Betts is leading the cavalry back from the injured list — just in time for a challenge from the charging Padres and Diamondbacks. After winning the NL West by 16 and 22 games the last two seasons, the Dodgers will benefit from a tighter race. But they got swept out of the division series last year because their starters allowed 13 runs in three games. A deadline trade for Jack Flaherty will help, but questions remain about the health and/or durability of Tyler Glasnow, Buehler, Kershaw, and, of course, Yamamoto.

World Series odds: 14.6%

Big question: How far can the two best hitters in baseball take them?

It isn’t hyperbolic to equate Aaron Judge and Juan Soto with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Entering the weekend, they ranked first and second in OPS, first and third in wins above replacement, first and fifth in home runs ... you get the idea. Imagine wasting that because the rest of the roster isn’t good enough.

» READ MORE: The Phillies have a ‘complete’ roster after the trade deadline. Is it enough to win the World Series?

World Series odds: 11.7%

Big question: Can Suárez hang with the aces again?

For three months, the Phillies were the class of baseball because their starting pitching dominated. And Suárez was the separator. With a 1.83 ERA through 98⅓ innings, he joined Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola as the best trio in the majors. But he hasn’t topped 155⅓ major-league innings in a season. If, as the Phillies hope, Suárez is better positioned to stay fresh through October, the midseason break will have been worth it.

World Series odds: 9.1%

Big question: Who’s the Game 2 starter?

It sure looks like Zach Eflin. He’s 4-0 with a 2.13 ERA and 25 strikeouts in 25⅓ innings since being acquired in a deadline trade. There will be time to litigate the Phillies’ decision two winters ago to let him walk away in free agency and sign Taijuan Walker. In the meantime, Eflin will follow Corbin Burnes to the mound in a playoff series for the ascending Orioles, who also are betting on ex-Phillies in the bullpen with Craig Kimbrel, Seranthony Domínguez, and Gregory Soto.