Tim Benz: As the Oakland A's visit the Pirates, are they really as bad as we think? No. They are worse.
As the Pittsburgh Pirates appear to have righted their ship, their next opponent continues to head straight for Niagara Falls in a barrel.
The Bucs’ weekend sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals extended their winning streak to five games. That’s a great way to start June after an 8-18 record in May.
“I think it sends a message to our group. You just have to continue to go,” manager Derek Shelton said after Sunday’s win. “We scored two in the first, and I actually thought we swung the bats today the best we did in the three games. We hit a ton of balls hard. We didn’t add on at times. But we swung the bats well. I think the message is more to our group that when you go out and play well, you’re gonna give yourselves a really good chance to win.”
Meanwhile, the Oakland A’s have found no such ability to get back down the center of the road. Amid plans to move the franchise to Las Vegas, Oakland is a disastrous 12-49. Back on May 30-31, the Athletics mysteriously won back-to-back games against the National League East-leading Atlanta Braves. Those victories halted an 11-game losing streak.
Maybe the highlight of the season occurred during that series when a fan ran onto the field during pregame and made it all the way around the bases — in reverse order — before security did anything about it.
This Oakland A's fan ran out onto the field before the game in Oakland, went all the way around the bases, and NOBODY cared ????
— Ben Verlander (@BenVerlander) May 31, 2023
Running the bases backward in a game is about the only thing the A’s haven’t done wrong so far this year.
Following those wins against the Braves, the A’s have now dropped four in a row again. Most recently, they blew a 5-1 lead in Miami, losing 7-5 to the Marlins on Sunday afternoon. At the beginning of that series, via the New York Post, Oakland’s winning percentage (.203) was the third worst in major league history through 59 games, better than only the 1904 Washington Senators and 1932 Red Sox.
It’s at .197 now. They are on pace to lose 130 games. The most in the modern era are 120 by the 1962 expansion New York Mets. The most in history are 134 racked up by the 1899 Cleveland Spiders.
As the club arrives in Pittsburgh, this group is 5-25 on the road this season and has lost 14 away games in a row.
“We are in a situation that’s kind of unprecedented,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said Sunday via the San Jose Mercury News. “Even though we’re going through a tough time and they’re being challenged, there are ways to paint a good picture that we’re going to get through this and that it’s really good on the other side.”
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This is one of those occasions in sports when the stats do tell the whole story.
• At the plate, Oakland ranks last in Major League Baseball in runs (206), OPS (.644), batting average (.217) and slugging percentage (.347). Their 438 hits are 28th. Their .297 on-base percentage is 29th. Their 570 strikeouts are the fourth most in the league.
• On the mound, the A’s pitching staff is last in batting average against (.280) and ERA (6.70). Their 397 earned runs allowed are the most in baseball by 96. Colorado is 29th with 301. The staff has allowed the most homers (101), has yielded the most walks (275) and has only 457 strikeouts, the fourth fewest in MLB. The team’s 1.62 WHIP is also the worst in baseball.
• With the gloves, the team’s fielding percentage of .983 is 24th. Their 35 errors are tied for eighth most.
• Esteury Ruiz leads the team in hitting at .267. No pitcher on the staff has more than two wins.
All that adds up to a minus-212 run differential. That Spiders team had an incomputable minus-732 run differential. The 1932 Boston Red Sox hold the modern record for the worst run differential at minus-349. If you want a more recent comparison, the 2003 Detroit Tigers, who went 43-119, ended the season at minus-337.
So, essentially, these A’s are every bit as bad — if not worse — than what the 2020 pandemic Pirates would have been if they were forced to pl— uh, I mean … able to play 162 games. That team went 19-41 through 60 games. Again, the current A’s are 12-49 through 61.
Keep that in mind if you want a barometer of what this Oakland team is going to look like when they visit PNC Park this week.
And keep in mind that’s why anything less than a sweep should be a disappointment for the Pirates.
Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@triblive.com or via X. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.
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