At last, they’re taking their A’s game to the next level
The game was excruciating. It was stressful, drawn-out and oftentimes sloppy.
But the agony of Thursday’s winner-take-all Game 3 proved to be worth it for Oakland A’s fans.
After all, they had waited 14 years for their team to win a playoff series — what’s another four-plus hours?
A 6- 4 victory over the Chicago White Sox in the deciding game of Major League Baseball’s wildcard round righted many playoff wrongs of years past for the A’s and put them into the second round for the first time since 2006.
History suggested that the A’s would lose Thursday. They had not won a winner-take-all game since the 1973 World Series. They had not come back from a deficit of three runs or more in the postseason since the 1988 World Series, failing in that circumstance 24 times in a row. And they were being roundly beaten in the early innings by a team with a load of history, including recent history, on its side.
But, in stark contrast to Game 1 on Tuesday, the A’s found some spirit, some heart, and rallied. Not just from their early 3- 0 deficit, either, but again when Chicago tied the game in the fifth inning.
The A’s scored all six of their runs Thursday with two outs, and their bullpen didn’t allow a run after the fifth inning. The afternoon was often thorny, but Oakland showed real gumption.
It must be noted that the A’s performance was flawed. They used eight pitchers — some were great, others liabilities. They left 12 runners on base. In many ways, they were merely the second-worst team on the field Thursday as Chicago manager Rick Renteria made enough bad decisions in one afternoon to fill a series.
But the playoffs are often a war of attrition, and the fight the A’s showed Thursday will serve them well in the next round.
Perhaps a few rounds after that, too. The A’s will have to play better, but
they have always had the talent to compete for the World Series. That is true, even without their best player, third baseman Matt Chapman, who is out for the season after hip surgery.
They just needed to get over their first-round hump.
The organization’s failures early in the playoffs clearly weighed on the team. While some of that weight was reduced by winning Wednesday to force Game 3, it all evaporated with Liam Hendriks, one of the best closers in baseball the past two seasons, on the mound in the bottom of the ninth inning Thursday.
Hendriks had the worst outing of his sterling season on Wednesday when he threw an eye-popping 49 pitches. Under normal circumstances, he would not pitch 24 hours after that heavy of a workload.
But the A’s had no other choice
Hendriks dug deep and mowed down Chicago’s power bats with 100 mph fastballs to seal the victory.
On the ESPN broadcast, you could see the A’s players around him on the field smiling before the game was even over. They knew Hendriks had found his best stuff. And for the first time in the series, the A’s looked loose.
Anyone who has watched this team over the past few years should know that a loose A’s team is perhaps the most dangerous team in baseball.
If the Houston Astros, the A’s second-round opponent and chief rival, aren’t already scared, they better wise up.
The A’s will enter the best- of-five-games American League Division Series with their past sins washed away.
And they’ll be looking to punish the Astros for their past sins, for which they are yet to repent. The Astros, you may recall, were found to be using an elaborate sign-stealing operation that helped them win the World Series in 2017 and the American League West over the A’s in 2018 and 2019.
Some Houston executives and the team’s manager — former Stanford star A. J. Hinch — lost their jobs. The Astros players, in exchange for their testimony, were not punished for doing the actual cheating.
They are reviled around the game, and they are using that as motivation.
“I know a lot of people are mad,” Astros shortstop Carlos Correa said after the Astros won their firstround series. “I know a lot of people don’t want to see us here. But what are they going to say now?”
Yeah, these guys need to be taken down a peg or two.
And the A’s, who have not shied away from openly disdaining the Astros, now have the opportunity to do it.