The Oakland Futility Watch is winding down now as the Oakland Athletics have a 38-93 record and are projected to win 49-plus games by sabermetric math at this point. We usually trust the math, but as noted last week, we’re more objective than the math—predicting just 47 victories this season for the sadsack A’s. Either way, the club took a big leap forward last week with a 4-3 record against Kansas City and Chicago.

But here’s the rub: Oakland won the first two games of each respective series and then failed to show any sort of “killer instinct” in terms of going for the jugular. It’s like the A’s were content to win two and clinched a win/split, before taking off the last game(s) of the series and cruising through ugly losses. We know not every game is going to be a competitive one for this relatively talentless bunch, but … still.

“Come on, man!“

Wednesday’s loss to the Royals at home was bad, since the Athletics could have gotten their first home sweep of the year—and we were there in person! Instead, the A’s got just two hits while striking out 13 times against K.C. pitching, which is pretty inexcusable, really, after scoring 11 runs the previous two games against the Royals. Plus, the no-show effort from the offense wasted a decent Oakland pitching effort.

Then, after taking it to the White Sox on the road on Thursday and Friday nights by a combined 20-9 score, the Athletics bats suddenly disappeared … again, posting just 3 runs total on Saturday and Sunday against Chicago. Oakland pitching coughed up 33 runs last week, showing it still has a long way to go in order to find some consistency, but when the offense goes so hot and cold, it reeks of poor concentration and prep.

You know who that’s on, of course. We won’t beat the dead horse again—we promised. And the A’s are going to avoid infamy by winning just enough games to outdo the 1962 New York Mets and the 2003 Detroit Tigers. That’s all that matters in the end, but we hate seeing missed opportunities week after week. Has there been growth this season? Yes, with the first-half win rate (.272) trailing the second-half rate (.333).

But it’s not enough … it’s never enough.