Wonder what the MLB record is for consecutive games won by one run (the Mets’ streak is currently at five).
I’d imagine it happened a lot in the dead ball era, but would be interesting to see the numbers
They certainly sit on a pace right now to be one of the worst teams of all time:
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They are on pace to go 43-119, the same as the 2003 Tigers, but a tiny bit better than the 40-120 1962 Mets. Of course, the 1962 Mets had the excuse of being an expansion team. The 2023 A’s don’t.
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Their runs scored and allowed suggest they should be 11-37, so their awful record isn’t really the product of bad luck. The 1962 Mets and 2003 Tigers were a bit more unlucky.
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They have allowed almost twice as many runs as they have scored; I don’t believe any team since 1900 has done that.
In all likelihood they’ll get a little better and end up 53-109 or something. The thing about a team this miserable is that it’s trivially easy, almost unavoidable, to get better. They’ll dump or demote guys like Shintaro Fujinami and Ken Waldichuk, or finally give up on Tony Kemp, and if they replace them with some guy who can put up a 5.35 ERA or, unlike Kemp, hit water falling out of a boat, that’s actually pushing them towards 53-109 instead of 43-119.
Their clearly deliberate “Major League” plan is honestly so openly disgusting. Now they can’t even figure out a clear stadium plan in Las Vegas, and John Fisher sits there with billions while trying to fuck over some city’s taxpayers.
Thank goodness for the A’s. If not for them, my Royals would be the worst team in baseball. After being swept by the not-very-good ChiSox, KC’s record is 14-34.
The Cardinals, who started the season going 10-24, have since gone 11-3. Despite still being six games under .500, they’ve now climbed to third place in the NL Central.
Yanks start a series against the O’s tonight. Cole on the mound. Followed by Cortes and then Schmidt. Yanks are 3 behind the O’s and 6 behind Tampa.
The Athletics could set a record this year for earliest elimination from postseason play.
From what info I can find, August 10th is the earliest date on which a MLB team has been eliminated from division/league contention - accomplished by the Orioles in 2018, tying the '32 Red Sox* and '62 Mets.
The As might as well go whole hog and get themselves eliminated by the All-Star break.
*The Red Sox went 43-111 that year, despite having an infield that included Urbane Pickering and Rabbit Warstler, who holds the distinction of being the second best MLB player known as “Rabbit”.
**there were four “Rabbits” who played major league ball, the most famous being Rabbit Maranville, who’s in the Hall of Fame.
I’ve found one source that says the 1963 Mets were eliminated on August 7. I found it a bit surprising they were eliminated earlier than the 1962 Mets, because they won eleven more games, but the math works.
As miserable as the A’s are, I don’[t think they will get knocked out that early. They’d have to be 55 or more games out of the third wild card spot after the end of play that day. They can’t play THIS badly all year.
I think.
Agreed – if for no other reason than there are more playoff spots available now, and multiple ways to qualify for the playoffs. For the '62 and '63 Mets, and the '32 Red Sox, the only playoff spot available was winning their league pennant, in a 10-team NL (for the Mets), or an 8-team AL (for the Red Sox).
The 2018 Orioles played in an AL in which they were a member of a 5-team AL Central, as well as there being two AL wild card slots; the 2023 A’s are in an AL where there are now three wild card slots, as well as a playoff slot for winning the 5-team AL West.
Barring the entire AL West being terrible this season (and there are three teams playing over-.500 ball in that division right now), the A’s will only be mathematically eliminated once it becomes mathematically impossible for them to get the third wild card berth.
As if this wasn’t the A’s worst imaginable year already, today they fired play by play man Glen Kuiper for saying the N-word on the air.
Kuiper states he mispronounced the word “Negro” in “Negro League Museum” - he had just started telling the audience how he’d had a great time visiting it. That’s plausible and it makes no sense in context he’d want to throw our a racial slur, but, well, there’s a deep drive by Castellanos. So in addition to their total joke of a relocation plan and being a team that might not win a strong International League division, they have this disgrace. What a mess.
The Kuiper situation really stinks. It was clearly a verbal flub. The president of the NLBM Bob Kendrick put out a statement shortly after the game offering Kuiper some really kind words and support, having had just given him and Dallas Braden a personal tour the day before. The As’ fan base takes another hit with this loss.
For those who have not seen the video, he wasn’t caught in a hot mic moment or something. He was looking right into the camera and starting to talk about how much he’d enjoyed the NLBM museum. It simply makes no sense for it to NOT be a verbal flub.
It is worth pointing out the A’s didn’t fire him; his employer was the network. Still.
I just watched the clip three times. He clearly says the N word. I don’t see how it could be considered a ‘flub.’
N/M. I didn’t see an earlier post about his firing.
So… he MEANT to say something amazingly offensive live on air and end his career?
This, exactly. He misspoke, plain and simple. Now, had he quickly stopped, apologized, corrected himself, and moved on, likely nothing would have happened.
He apologized minutes later. I don’t see how apologizing slightly earlier would have mattered.
It was an hour later when he apologized. Lot different than an immediate apology.
Kuiper during a May 5 pregame show was chatting about his day in Kansas City, where the A’s were playing the Royals. He was referring to his visit to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum when the incident happened.
More than an hour later, Kuiper apologized during the game.
He may have made a gaffe, or he might be the kind of guy who refers to the Negro leagues and the NAACP using that word instead. There’s really no way to know.
Didn’t the network hint that other stuff turned up in their investigation?
From here: