Fascinating Season Stats from the Stadium Game Information sheet!

I'm the first person to admit that I am not a "stats guy." I love baseball and I love the A's, but I cannot quote off the top of my head random stats or normally not even common stats about players or records. I am a fan of many sports but baseball is by far my favorite! I love going out to the 'ole Coliseum for the games, and I am fortunate to live here in the Bay Area, so I can attend the games in person. There are so many stats and information available about so many different things related to the game, sometimes it seems like stat overload, but it's what makes the game so great. Everyone is able to look at the numbers and make assumptions or sometimes realize facts about people or things that have happened. In baseball stat sheets are like school history books, we can look back to games played 80 years ago and have some idea how things went down.

I have begun to recently pick up and read the Oakland Athletics Game Information sheet that is available inside the Coliseum at A's home games. For those of you who are not familiar with it, the sheet basically has all kinds of miscellaneous facts and stats about the A's and the particular game that you are attending. While reading the sheet yesterday before the game started I thought that since some of you have not seen it I would share some of the information from the sheet. Much of the information from yesterday's game is negative because the team is not very good, but I still find it intersting and I hope that you all do to. I apologize to those of you who already know most of this but I hope that you find something something interesting that you didn't know.

The A's have not won or lost more than 3 games in a row since June 29th, maybe this is commom amongst teams, but I am guessing that this is most commom amongst teams that are not very good. I am assuming that the good teams go on winning streaks for more than 3 games pretty frequently. But it also would appear that we are not the worst becuase it seems like if we were the worst then we would have lost more than 3 in a row at sometime during this span. So I give this stat a grade of Mediocre for the A's.

The A's have spent the last 126 days and 132 days total this year in sole possession of last place in the AL West. The only seasons in Oakland history where we spent more days alone in last place are 1997 (153) and 1979 (147). The A's have finished the season in last place in the AL West only six times in Oakland History (1977, 1979, 1993, 1995, 1997, 1998). I am really hoping that this current team is more like the 1998 team and not so much like the 1997 team, as that would mean that good things maybe even great things are on the horizon.

In the homestand that concluded yesterday, the A's number three hitters were 4 for 26 (.154). The number three hitters are batting .215 (115 for 536) for the season, which is the lowest mark in the majors, since 1974! The four players with the  most starts in the three spot are Jack Cust (33 starts, .156 AVG), Jason Giambi (29, .210), Scott Hairston (26, .252) and Kurt Suzuki (21, .198).

The A's have started a rookie pitcher 98 times this year, which is an Oakland record, beating the 1983 mark of 93. According to Elias, the last team to have more starts by a rookie pitcher is the 1998 Florida Marlins (128). The A'sstarters are 39-55 with a 4.81 ERA for the season and have the second fewest innings pitched (759.2) along with the second fewest wins and the fourthhighest ERA in the AL. We are the only AL team with just one complete game, the Oakland record for fewest complete games in a season is two in 1997 and the record for fewest innings pitched in a non strike season is 858.2 also in 1997.

The A's are fourth in the AL and tied for fourthin the majors with 107 stolen bases this season, this is just the second time in the last 14 years that we have had more than 100 steals in a season (1998 they had 131). This is a big change from our early 2000's strategy where we put guys in and then waited for the 3 run homer. I guess that with the way the team is currently assembled our only hope of scoring is to manufacture runs. 

The A's are batting .273 since the All Star break after hitting .246 before the break. I am glad to see that our batting average is up almost 30 points since the all star break, and it shows in the games. Many of the post all star games have been much more competitive. Our .256 average for the season is the second lowest in the AL. We rank last in the AL in Home Runs (118), Extra base Hits (373) and Slugging Percentage (.388). We have 441 walks and are on pace for 525 walks for the season, the last time the A's walked fewer than 537 times in an on strike season was 1985 when they had 508. So basically our batting average sucks and we don't walk, not a good combination IMO.

The defense seems to be a strong point as we have committed 82 errors for the season and are on pace to commit just 98 errors. This would give us fewer than 100 errors in each of the previous five seasons, which equals the longest streak in MLB History (Phillies 2001-2005).

Our beloved A'shave finished with a losing record in each of the first five months this year, the first time we have done that since 1993. Not even the 1997 A's managed that one, yikes! The only time in Oakland A's history that we have had a losing record in all six months was 1979. I am too young to remember the 1979 season but man that team must have really stunk as they are on the worst record list for the A's several times!  In the majors this season only Baltimore and Washington, along with the A's have finished with a losing record in all five months. Our last month with a winning record was last June (16-10) and the eight consecutive months since then without a winning record is he second longest streak in Oakland history (also had eight straight from August 1978 to September 1979), there's that 79 team again, LOL! The longest streak we have ever had was 10 months in a row from August 1996 to May 1998, can you say Tom Candiotti and Ernie Young anyone.

I think that I have found the key to winning for this team, the A's are 54-24 when they score 4 runs or more. We are 7-52 when we score less than 4 runs. So, I think that we just need to ask for a grand slam a game and we will be good to go!  

I hope that everyone has a great Labor Day Holiday and I hope that I did not bore you with these stats. I was somewhat intrigued when I read them and I hope that you get something out of them as well, other than the fact that we are not too good right now.