The Oakland Athletics, much like the Cincinnati Reds, blew up their team before the start of the 2022 season.
Now, they find themselves with the worst record in the American League at 42-75.
That amounts to an abysmal .359 winning percentage.
And when something good happens, there always seems to be something bad that cancels it out.
Case and point: when their starting pitchers have quality starts.
Because of their depleted offense, the A’s are 12-21 when their starters give up three runs or less over at least six innings.
That’s a .364 winning percentage.
The last team to have a winning percentage below .400 in a season when pitchers had quality starts was the Athletics themselves back in 1919, when they played in Philadelphia.
Good Starting Pitching With An Anemic Offense
There’s nothing like matching a franchise record in a negative way.
The Athletics may soon have two teams in their franchise history who had disappointing records when their starters pitched well.
In 1919, they posted a .394 winning percentage when their starters had quality starts, going 26-40.
That’s about as bad as it gets, and it may get even worse this year.
Almost nothing has gone right this season in Oakland.
The organization sold off its best players and now find themselves well out of the postseason race.
It’s as if they gave up on the season before it even started, which technically, they did.
But when your pitchers pitch well, your offense needs to show up and back them up.
Starting pitchers need run support, especially when they pitch well.
If they don’t have it, they’ll find themselves on the wrong end of a pitcher’s duel very frequently.
No pitcher wants to be a hard-luck loser, but for the A’s starters, that has been the case this season.
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