The Sacramento Athletics Are A Wind Farm

But it's the way that the A's are not winning that stands out, a frenzy of aerobic exercise centered around swinging a baseball bat but without the associated achievement of striking a thrown ball with it, and capped by a short brisk plod back to the dugout. They lost their fourth consecutive game last night in Atlanta, 4-0, and were better at hitting the ball than they have been in any other game, which is mostly to say they were poorer at missing it. The A's have sent 145 batsman plateward so far this year, and 57 have walked back to the dugout moments later without having put the ball in play. This is the worst start for contact in the measured history of the sport, which is to say since 1898; that includes the Cleveland Spiders, which settles that argument for good. The A's struck out 16 times in their opener in Toronto, 19 times the next day, and 15 the day after that. On Monday in Atlanta, that figure was only seven, which leads us to believe that manager Mark Kotsay mentioned their little bit of history to his team at least in passing. Too bad on that last one, too, because they'd been on a pace to strike out 2,700 times, breaking the old record by 1,046. Now their projected figure is only 2,308.