Oakland A's sinking to new depths amid terrible start
Baseball's new pitch timer finally met its match this week in the form of Oakland's pitching staff.
The Athletics walked 17 batters in a 17-6 loss to the New York Mets on Friday night. Time of game: 3 hours, 29 minutes — and it may have felt twice that long to anyone who stayed until the end.
With the Mets in town, Oakland drew 11,102 for that contest, an improvement for a team that managed under 12,000 fans for an entire three-game series against Cleveland. It's been a dreary start for the A's at the box office, and the team's performance on the field has been even worse than expected.
After being swept by the Mets, the A's have the worst record in the majors at 3-13. Their run differential of minus-63 is the worst in the sport, and the fourth-worst of the modern era in a team's first 16 games.
Oakland has been held to one run or fewer five times, and the A's have allowed 11 runs or more six times. In three of their games, they did both.
Oakland does have some company. Several clubs are off to particularly poor starts. The season is 18 days old, and already seven teams have run differentials of minus-20 or worse — the A's, Tigers (-37), Royals (-28), Rockies (-27), Marlins (-26), White Sox (-23) and Nationals (-20). After 18 days had elapsed last season, only three teams were at minus-20 or worse.
There have been four 100-loss teams in each of the past three full 162-game seasons, in 2019, 2021 and 2022. It appears there are several candidates to reach that mark in 2023.