Piscotty not at his best, but his on-base streak is

Stephen Piscotty hasn’t felt at his best in the first two months of the season, but even so, he’s figuring out a way to make a positive impact every day.

After his fourth-inning single Tuesday, Piscotty has reached base in 24 consecutive games, a career best and the longest active streak in the majors.

“The most impressive thing to me is that he has not felt good during this stretch, and he finds a way to get a hit. He finds a way to get a walk,” manager Bob Melvin said. “That’s how you keep your numbers going when you’re not feeling great.”

Piscotty batted .272 with a .350 on-base percentage during the first 23 games of that stretch, and that latter number is by design. “I’ve really tried to shift some of my focus to onbase percentage versus average,” he said. “With all the shifts, some of the numbers are just going to come off your average.”

As far as the streak goes, Piscotty said, “Sometimes it’s just an anomaly when you get a real good run going. I thought earlier in the year, I wasn’t being really consistent. Now that I’m back to operating in a much more consistent basis, I’m happy about that.

“It’s a tough game, when you get a tough matchup or whatever, it’s just not in the cards for you to have a great game on a given night. So it feels good to at least do something, get on base, because we’ve got so many good guys in this lineup, you’ve got a chance to be driven in with a double or a homer.”

Piscotty also is consistent afield: He entered Tuesday with a 107-game errorless streak dating to July 24. Transactions: There were no takers for the remainder of Fernando Rodney’s $5.25 million salary, so the A’s released the reliever after designating him for assignment last week. Any other club may sign Rodney for the pro-rated major-league minimum; the 42year-old had a 9.42 ERA in 17 outings with Oakland.

In another move Tuesday, the A’s activated outfielder Nick Martini from the 60-day injured list and optioned him to Triple-A Las Vegas. Martini hit .373 with a .467 on-base percentage in 16 games with the team in September. “You never know how the season goes along, so to have that kind of depth is a pretty good option to have,” Melvin said.