MLB's worst offense loses its best hitter for several weeks

The Oakland A's have been one of baseball's worst teams through the first week-and-a-half of the season, including an exceptionally poor offense. They got even more bad news on Tuesday with the news that Seth Brown, their best hitter, is expected to miss the next 4-6 weeks with a strained oblique. 

Brown was injured over the weekend on a check swing attempt against the Tampa Bay Rays. 

Like every other hitter in Oakland, Brown has been off to a slow start through the team's first 10 games but has been one of its best hitters the past two years. He has topped the 20-home run mark in each of those seasons while having an OPS+ over 100. That success at the plate, as well as the fact the A's are clearly not ready to compete, has also made him a potential in-season trade candidate for teams in need of a left-handed bat.

In the short term, his absence takes what is already a bad A's offense and makes it even worse.

Entering play on Monday, the A's were just 2-8 through their first 10 games with a league-worst minus-49 run differential. Only two other teams (Detroit at minus-35 and Miami at minus-31) have a run differential worse than minus-30. Along with that the A's have scored just 28 runs in 10 games. 

That 2.8 runs per game average are the lowest mark in the league, while they have only a .595 OPS as a team. 

The A's lost 102 games a year ago and traded Gold Glove catcher Sean Murphy this winter to the Atlanta Braves. Without Murphy and now Brown, the A's lineup does not have anything close to star power, meaning it is going to be another long baseball season in Oakland.