Spoilage.

Atlanta, two games back in the NL Wild Card race, badly needed a win in Arlington last Friday.

And badly needed a win Saturday.

And badly needed a win Sunday.

Oakland, in the midst of a colossal, spiraling plummet, badly needed a win in its own building against Texas on Tuesday.

And badly needed a win Wednesday.

And badly needed a win Thursday.

They both needed wins far more, practically speaking, than the Texas Rangers did but they failed, all six times, against a Rangers team that some diehard fans, inspired by draft position and associated lagniappe, have been hoping would lose every game left on the schedule.

(Not me, by the way — I’m just pulling for Rockies and Diamondbacks wins . . . and series splits when they play each other, as they are right now. The Rangers’ tragic number: nine, and counting.)

How slim were the odds of the Rangers sweeping either the Atlanta or Oakland series, let alone both? Ridiculously slim — in fact, the great Jeff Sullivan of FanGraphs called the sweep of the Braves the third-most unlikely series outcome of the entire 2014 MLB season (2.766 percent likelihood) . . . and the sweep of the A’s the first-most unlikely series result all year (2.087 percent).

As Sullivan put it, “the A’s didn’t just get swept — the A’s got embarrassed, by a full roster with half the talent. . . . [I]nexcusable.”

In none of those six games, by the way, did more Texas players appear who started the season on the big league roster than those who didn’t. In the Braves series finale, for example, six Rangers from the Opening Day roster appeared, along with three players who began the year in AAA (including one with San Diego’s AAA club), four who started the year in AA, and one who was in High Class A. Appearing for Texas in the A’s finale: five Opening Day big leaguers, three AAA players (including one with Kansas City’s top farm club), and six AA players.

Hanging in there and pulling for this Rangers roster isn’t quite like watching Jackie Davidson and Johnny Monell on the Replacement Rangers in the spring of 1995. Or Kevin Sweeney and Cornell Burbage leading the Replacement Cowboys in 1987. Or Ralph Drollinger leaving Athletes in Action to suit up for the expansion Mavericks.

But there are minor league free agents getting regular playing time for Texas right now, and you can probably imagine what a gut punch it must be to be a fan of the Braves or A’s right now, let alone of their players, coming off three days each of abject failure against this going-nowhere team, when every game meant just about everything to them.

Oakland corner bat Brandon Moss, who is hitting a remarkably anemic .179/.303/.282 in 185 second-half trips to the plate, said after his team’s series-ender against the Rangers: “When you’re in a race, it’s supposed to be fun. But I don’t see anyone in this clubhouse having any fun. Because it’s not.”

I completely disagree. This has been a blast.

And, considering that this is a team relegated to the unwanted role of spoiler and in line to land draft pick 1.1 — for the first time since 1973, very strange to watch.

I can’t begin to imagine how much more exponentially strange it is for Ron Washington to watch, from a couch rather than the top step.

Even as little as a month ago, if I’d asked you to identify which AL West team had locked up 162+ by now, which two were fighting for a playoff position (perhaps the final one), and which two were looking for a manager, there’s basically zero chance you would have gotten more than two of the five right. What a weird season.

I’m enjoying Oakland’s developing and potentially epic collapse (#addisonrussell) immensely. Unbecoming (the accusation a couple years ago was “gauche”), maybe, but unapologetically so, because sports.

And because we as Rangers deserve a little fired-up in 2014, wherever we can find it, after the season-long fusillade of gut-punches we’ve had to endure.

None of us is going to look kindly back on 2014 as Rangers fans, even if the way it has played out could end up leading to a franchise-altering draft and the Dawn of Odor and perhaps an opportunity to go forward with a field manager that the organization wouldn’t have had the chance to entrust Game Day to had it not been for perhaps the most unbelievable turn of events in a season full of them.

But, strange as it probably seems, I bet lots of us are enjoying baseball right now more than a whole lot of Atlanta Braves and Oakland A’s fans are, and not just because even the losses these days — remember those? — come with a highly unfamiliar silver lining.