Yikes! 90 is an ugly number in the loss column, but Rob Neyer brought up the possibility today and it got me thinking how real that number could be for the 2008 A’s.
Neyer thinks the A’s are more likely to lose around 85 than to hit the big nine-oh, but I’m not so sure.
To lose 90 games, the A’s would have to go 15-23 - or worse - the rest of the way. That is a .395 winning percentage. That is a better winning percentage than they’ve posted since the All Star Break (.195). That’s right - the A’s have to improve to avoid losing 90 games.
The last time the A’s lost 90 or more games was in 1997, the worst year of my A’s fandom. Is this team as bad as that team? Well, our current pitching is a heck of a lot better than the staff on the ‘97 team, but no one on this current A’s offense can dream of being as good as the 1997 incarnations of Geronimo Berroa, Jason Giambi, and Matt Stairs. Sad, but true. (Frank Thomas doesn’t count.)
The good news for the ‘08 A’s is that they now get to play a four-game set with the Mariners, a team that is actually worse than them! The bad news is, to break the streak of series losses, the A’s would have to win three out of four, which is tough to do against any team. A split in a series doesn’t count as winning it.
Then again, it shouldn’t count as losing it either…
Uh, go A’s!
