A's Run Losing Streak to 8 in Usual Fashion

What does decent pitching and no offense get you? A 4-0 shutout. And this time, there's no strength of schedule excuse.

No, the pitching wasn't creamed by Alex Rodriguez and Co., and the offense wasn't shut out by Clay Buchholz...this is Chris Jakubauskas. Roster filler in every sense of the word. A career 5.59 ERA. 5.25 FIP. I could go on and on. Jakubauskas threw 80 pitches in 5 innings, striking out 5 and walking 1, allowing only 3 hits. You know, like a good #3 would. Not exactly the work of someone who has a career -0.3 WAR. The only reason he didn't pitch longer was that Cliff Pennington lined a ball off of his ankle, and he was taken out of the game for the next inning, presumably for precautionary reasons.

Now, granted, the A's are on their 8th starting pitcher (going on 9, with Brett Anderson going on the disabled list), and no team can survive that many injured pitchers, but this game wasn't the fault of fill-in Guillermo Moscoso. Again, he pitched decently, striking out 2 and walking 1 in 5 innings. The only dings on his performance were two solo home runs, one coming from the bat of J.J. Hardy, the first Oriole to step into the box. What a way to start the day.

Really, the only bright spot in the game was the major league debut of A's top prospect 2B Jemile Weeks, who...went 0 for 4. Oh. Of course.

Luke Scott hit another mammoth solo HR in the 5th, and the Orioles notched another run in the 6th and 7th innings, but this game was well over by then. If an offense is going to get shutout by Chris Jakubauskas, there's really no hope for the rest of the game, is there?