O's offense remains inconsistent as they look for series win today at Oakland

It seems strange, but while the Oakland A's have the second-worst record in the American League at 48-60, they have the best team ERA and best starting pitching ERA.

Yeah, that offense and defense both must be pretty bad for the A's, who have lost eight of 12 and are 7-10 since the All-Star game.

But Oakland's unheralded, yet talented right-hander Chris Bassitt blanked the Orioles on five hits over seven innings last night as Oakland beat the Orioles 5-0.

So 24 hours after a feel-good start to their road trip, when they won 9-2 and had 14 hits including four doubles and two homers, the O's failed to score a single run. The inconsistent offense was back.

In the first three innings, the Orioles were turned away each time. In the first, Gerardo Parra singled with one out, but Adam Jones bounced into a double play. In the second, Chris Davis led off with a double, but didn't score. In the third, left fielder Coco Crisp made a diving catch with two outs to rob Parra of a single that would have scored a run. The O's went 0-for-8 on the night with runners in scoring position.

In the last nine games, the Orioles have scored two, seven, two, eight, eight, six, one, nine and zero runs. Yeah, there have been a few ups and downs.

The Orioles were, however, averaging 5.3 runs per game the last 10 games until the shutout Tuesday night. Now they have scored three runs or less in 18 of the last 28 games.

The A's have been a major thorn in the Orioles side, going 14-1-1 in season series against the O's since 1999 and going 89-47 in that time. The Orioles are 8-20 at Oakland since 2008 and have lost 36 of the last 51 there.

With all those bad stats, they still can win the series with a victory this afternoon. They need it to get the road trip off to a winning start before Thursday's off-day.

Wei-Yin Chen (5-6, 3.24 ERA) faces Oakland right-hander Kendall Graveman (6-7, 3.84 ERA) this afternoon. The Orioles begin today one game out of the second AL wild-card spot and 6 1/2 games back in the AL East.