Last winter, some people wondered why the rebuilding Oakland Athletics would be interested in 38-year-old Bartolo Colón.

Well, somebody has to start every fifth game while the youngsters are developing. And if Colón keeps pitching remotely like he did Wednesday night, the A's should be able to flip Colón and his tiny salary for a hot prospect in a month or two.

What did Colón do? Susan Slusser (via SFGate.com):

The A’s starter threw 38 consecutive strikes from the second pitch of the fifth inning through the seventh pitch of the eighth inning of Oakland’s 6-0 win over the Angels.

--snip--

The A’s and Angels are hoping to try to get some sort of information about where that might rank all-time, but I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s just wild to even think of that. Eleven batters in a row never saw a ball.

UPDATE: The data so far goes back to 1988, and Colon’s streak is the longest in that 24-year stretch. The next highest total in that time: 30 in a row by Tim Wakefield in 1998.

Colon – who now looks like a pure steal at $2 million for one year – worked eight scoreless innings against the powerful Angels and he allowed four hits, three of them coming with two outs.

Not Cliff Lee or Roy Halladay or any of the other great control artists. Tim Wakefield and (especially) Bartolo Colón. Go figure.

Oh, and if you want to see all 38 straight strikes, MLB.com's got them all queued up for you.