The five-time BBL champions were in the hunt for another post-season berth with three wins from their first five games, only to drop their next four and all but crash out of contention.
With Monday night's 61-run loss to the Sydney Thunder, the Scorchers fell to the bottom of the ladder and will rely on a multitude of results falling their way to clinch the last finals spot available.
The Scorchers must defeat the Adelaide Strikers on Saturday, hope the Melbourne Stars lose their final regular-season game and need the Brisbane Heat to drop both of theirs.
They must also hope the Melbourne Renegades lose to the Hobart Hurricanes on Tuesday night.
Even if all of those results come to pass, the Scorchers will have to rely on net-run rate to join the Thunder, Hurricanes and Sydney Sixers in the final four.
It would mark only the third time in 14 BBL seasons that the Scorchers miss finals.
"We still have to look forward to the next game, that's just what professionals do," Scorchers spinner Ashton Agar said after the loss to the Thunder.
Aaron Hardie's dismissal was another blow to the Scorchers as they subsided to 97 all out in Sydney. (Steven Markham/AAP PHOTOS)
The Scorchers' costly four-game losing streak was their first since the 2018/19 season, and was made all the more heartbreaking for the nailbiting circumstances of the first two defeats.
The Thunder kicked off the losing streak when import Sherfane Rutherford sealed victory in Perth from the final ball, before the Melbourne Renegades made it two losses in a row for the Scorchers by sealing their win with two deliveries to spare.
Title hopefuls the Sydney Sixers defeated the Scorchers by only 14 runs at the weekend after a Steve Smith century, before the Thunder extended the streak to four losses.
"When we reflect on the season, obviously we'll think, jeez, there were a few games there in a row that were really close and that were in our grasp well and truly and we let it slip," Agar said.
"That's always disappointing but sometimes that's the way it goes"
Agar predicted some off-season soul-searching for the perennial BBL heavyweights.
"As long as we reflect honestly with ourselves as players, we look at where we can improve and we try to get better, that's all you can ask of anyone," he said.
"The feeling is we hate losing. There's still a lot of fire in the belly and all of us take pride in our performance so we know we have another crack at performing. That's what we're going to try to do."
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