The Oakland Athletics have established a tradition of starting slow before finding their form. The 2001 A’s started 8–17 before winning 102 games to qualify for the playoffs. The next year, Oakland went 20–25 before winning 103 games and inspiring an Oscar-nominated movie (including Jonah Hill's first nomination). The 2006 and 2012 teams were both under .500 after 50 games before battling back to win the AL West.
But this A’s squad has taken that pattern one step further and crammed a year’s worth of thrills into the first month of the season. After losing their first six games while being outscored 50–13, the A’s were given just a 10% chance of qualifying for the playoffs by Fangraphs.