‘130-loss pace’ worst team of all time has a Japanese pitcher with a 12.17 ERA as a big leaguer
The record for most losses in a single season in Major League Baseball is 134, set by the Cleveland Spiders in 1899. The Spiders, a member of the National League (NL), went 20-134 that year, with a .130 winning percentage, the worst losses and lowest winning percentage in major league history.
Since 1901, the start of modern baseball, the Philadelphia Athletics’ 36-117 (.235) record in 1916 is the lowest winning percentage, and the New York Mets’ 120 losses (40 wins) in the NL in 1962 is the highest.
We could see a lot of those records broken this season. The Oakland Athletics are off to their worst start of the season, hovering around the two-win mark.
The A’s lost their sixth straight game on April 24, falling 2-3 to the Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park. It’s neither a surprise nor a shocker.메이저놀이터
The A’s had posted just one winning streak during their 50-game run to this point, going 10-40. The only two-game winning streak came on June 7-8, when the A’s swept the Kansas City Royals, 12-8 and 5-4. Kansas City was 1-2 at the time of the “humiliating” loss.
It ranks fourth on the all-time list of lowest winning percentages through the first 50 games of a season. The 1897 Louisville Kernels lead the category with a 7-43 record, while the 1899 Spiders and 1904 Washington Senators are tied for second with a 9-41 record.
If Oakland maintains its current winning percentage through the end of the season, it will finish the year with 32 wins and 130 losses. That would be the second-most games lost since the 1899 Spiders. With the way Oakland has been playing lately, it doesn’t seem impossible. They’re 21 games behind the AL West-leading Texas Rangers (30-18). They’re 25 games behind the AL East’s Tampa Bay Rays (35-15), the best winning percentage team in baseball.
Oakland ranks 29th in team batting average (.225), 28th in runs per game (3.6), 18th in team home runs (53), third in team stolen bases (48), and 28th in team OPS (0.66). There are no last-place finishes among the 30 teams in any of the major offensive categories.
The mound, however, is a different story. The team ERA (6.95) is 30th, the only one in the six figures. Team batting average (0.283), team WHIP (1.67), team home runs (85), and team runs allowed (7.16) are also last. Their run differential is -178 runs. They’ve given up twice as many runs as they’ve scored.
This team has no reason to be in the major leagues. They’re moving to Las Vegas in 2025, and there’s no way that’s going to improve their situation. The Oakland A’s, who play at the Oakland Coliseum, have an average home attendance of 8695 as of this date, the only team in the 30-team league under 10,000. Last year, it was 9849, and this year it’s even worse.
That’s where Japanese pitcher Shintaro Fujinami comes in. After signing a one-year, $3.25 million deal with the A’s in January to fulfill his major league dream, Fujinami began his rookie season as a second starter, but he struggled to adjust and was demoted to the bullpen after his fourth start on April 23 against the Texas Rangers.
He lost all four of his starts and had a 14.40 ERA. Since then, he’s lowered his ERA to 12.17, but it’s not a significant improvement. His bullpen ERA is 10.66.
Poor command, command anxiety, and lack of adaptability – a total mess. His four-seam fastball, which he throws more than half the time, tops out at 100.6 mph and averages 97.1 mph. That’s not much better than his high school rival, Shohei Ohtani, who topped out at 101.2 mph and averaged 97.2 mph.
In 27⅔ innings, he has allowed 24 walks and struck out 29. He has a .293 batting average and has hit three home runs. There’s no reason to keep him in the majors other than a minor league veto. He’s a major leaguer that can only be found in Oakland.