The Oakland Futility Watch returns after the Oakland Athletics posted a 2-3 record last week against the San Francisco Giants (0-2) and the Colorado Rockies (2-1). The team is off today before taking on the Los Angeles Dodgers on the road for three games before returning to the East Bay to host the Giants for two games on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. The A’s currently have a 30-77 record with 55 games to play.

The team’s .280 winning percentage is brutal; right now it ranks as the third-worst group in organizational history, trailing only the 1916 and the 1919 Philadelphia teams (.235 and .257, respectively). But Oakland is doing well enough to be able to avoid the 2003 Detroit Tigers (.265) as the worst team in recent MLB memory. And again, the 2023 Kansas City Royals (.299) are barely better than the Athletics, anyway.

After winning just six times in March/April, six times in May, 10 times in June, and eight times in July? Oakland just needs seven victories in both August and September/October to surpass those Tigers. The A’s offense has been hit or miss lately, scoring 22 runs in a three-game stretch last week—and scoring just once in the two bookend games on either end of that run of offensive outburst. Inconsistency, thy name is …

As noted, the worst part of this team has been the pitching: Oakland is 4-28 in games decided by at least five runs, which means the Athletics are getting hammered a lot and often. On the flip side, the A’s are 16-22 in one-run games, so they’re not so bad when the pitchers can keep the opponents within reach. What is really hurting Oakland is the 5-26 record against American League West rivals. That’s downright painful.

It’s also why every other team in the division is over .500 this year and in playoff contention. The Athletics’ best player this year is pitcher J.P. Sears: 2-7, 4.09 ERA, 1.046 WHIP, and 2.7 WAR. It’s actually pretty impressive that the Oakland roster doesn’t have any pitchers approaching 20 losses in 2023. In fact, the worst number in that category is 8 right now, by two different pitchers. But what about the offense, you ask?

The “best” position player is first baseman Ryan Noda, currently injured. He’s an age-27 rookie who is hitting .229, and maybe that’s all you need to know there. In scoring just 3.62 runs per game right now, the A’s may struggle the rest of the season to avoid running the worst lineup in franchise history out there. At this pace, they’ll score 586 runs this year in total: that would be one of the uglier totals in team archives.

Anyway, this is just a brief update today, as we remain hopeful Oakland will avoid most of the uglier records we were worried about them achieving this season way back in April. The team is 18-31 since the start of June (.367), and if the Athletics can win at that pace for the final 55 contests in 2023, these A’s will end up with a 50-112 record, overall. That would still be the fourth-worst team in franchise lore, but … hey.