If you really drill into the numbers, no, they have basically been the same .500 team all along, August was actually their best month, and they've had a particular facility for both never winning two games in a row (earlier in the season) or alternating epic losing streaks with epic winning streaks.
But they were 59-53 on August 8, and in first place, and then went 4-10. Call it a collapse, call it a dreadful slump, but it made it hard for them to truly get back into the race - and even when they finally feasted on a few bad teams to end August and start September, it was probably too late, and still was during the Baltimore/Pittsburgh series.
But if the manager is supposed to be good at one thing, it's getting the team to play with energy in the highest-pressure situations - and the lowest-pressure situations for that matter. So no, the team isn't really any different this month. It's also not a collapse because they didn't win in the first half, which the 2018-2020 teams did.
Was the problem in this series really chemistry or energy or desire? No, it was probably bad pitching and bad fielding and bad hitting. But it was no more or less a collapse of a chemistry problem as the previous teams, IMO, and that has repeatedly gotten coaches and managers fired.
