“Cheap with their payroll. Cheap with our great national anthem” - Twitter rips into unconventional American national anthem performance at Oakland Athletics game 

The Oakland Athletics have made headlines all season for being one of the cheapest franchises in baseball. Their payroll is only $48 million, one of the lowest in baseball. For scale, the New York Mets are paying starting pitcher Max Scherzer an annual salary of $43.3 million. In one year, Scherzer is making just five million dollars less than the entire Oakland Athletics roster.

It's what you might call a full-scale rebuild. Or maybe it's a sign of an owner who doesn't want to spend much money on his franchise. Either way, there's not a whole lot of money going into or coming out of the Athletics right now. Their average home game attendance is just 8,422, the worst in the league.

Now it looks like the Athletics are even making cutbacks with their national anthem performances. Before Sunday's game versus the Boston Red Sox, a musician named Caroline McCaskey played the American national anthem on a saw. It's something you have to see to believe.

"playing the National Anthem on a saw is something straight out of a horror movie" - @ Jomboy Media

Twitter jumped all over it. Here's some of the best reactions.

Twitter rips into unconventional American national anthem performance at Oakland Athletics game

The Oakland Athletics are 20-36 this season.

This user cut straight to the chase. They think the Athletics disrespected the national anthem with this performance.

"Cheap with their payroll. Cheap with our great national anthem. A’s should be ashamed as an organization" - @ Bookie Brad

This user went after the performer. In all fairness, her talent is otherworldly. The sound product simply doesn't fit the mood.

"The A’s are so bad that even the local church choir doesn’t even wanna come in to perform the national anthem. They found this lady shopping at Home Depot." - @ Ricky Pollina

This user posted a video taken live from the game. He had a hard time keeping a straight face during it. "No, Patrick, mayonnaise is not an instrument" (quoting "SpongeBob SquarePants").

"It was even more wild LIVE Felt like a commie laughing at national anthem but come on now" - @ ZevHadar | Will Hirschtick

This user went after the Oakland Athletics for having the worst attendance average in the league.

"I’m sure all 985 fans in attendance were enthralled with the performance" - @ Mike Ryan

The performance did have an alien-like sound quality.

"That reminds me of mars attacks for some reason" - @ Benny O'Reilly

This user raises a good question: How did this brand of music originate?

"How do you even figure out that you can do this?" - @ Baseball Quotes

This user thinks it sounded like an "evil galactic empire" had taken over the RingCentral Coliseum for a day.

"This sounds like the "Bad End" to a video game that plays as you watch an American flag raised except there's a logo for some evil galactic empire in the middle of it" - @ Tim Keiss

This user was reminded of the famous opera scene from "Shawshank Redemption."

"That saw sounds like the lady that sang over the loudspeaker in the Shawshank Redemption" - @KJ

The Athletics' low payroll reflects in their record. The team is 20-36 so far this season.