John Shea: A’s can’t afford to lose groove.

Clinching is one thing. What happens the remainder of the regular season is something else.

How the A’s, after earning a playoff spot, perform in their final games on the schedule could help determine their fate once they reach the postseason. History tells us there’s not just one way to take a championship journey, but the A’s would do themselves a favor if they don’t let up in the final days.

Right fielder Stephen Piscotty knows firsthand what that’s like.

“You don’t necessarily have to be hot going into the playoffs,” Piscotty said, “but I definitely think the hottest teams are in the best spot. I’ve always felt, and it’s not just from my experience, playing hot at the time can be a nice edge.”

Piscotty broke into the majors in July 2015 with the St. Louis Cardinals, who were on their way to 100 victories and their fifth straight National League Championship Series, except something went drastically wrong.

The Cardinals clinched a division title in their 159th game, an 11-1 rout in Pittsburgh. It was win No. 100. The final three games in Atlanta were meaningless. Or were they? The Cardinals’ offense never showed up at Turner Field, and the fourth-place Braves not only swept the three-game series but pitched three shutouts.

The Cardinals lost their groove, and it carried over to the playoffs. The Cubs won the Division Series in four games.

“You play 162 games, and you win 100 of them, that means nothing once you get to the postseason,” Piscotty said. The Red Sox might be the lone 100-game winners this season. They were first to clinch a playoff spot and division title, and they’ll be favored in the Division Series when they face the winner of the A’s-Yankees wild-card game.

The 2015 Cardinals didn’t clinch earlier because the NL Central was stacked that year, the Pirates winning 98 and the Cubs 97. The Red Sox will have more down time, which brings us to the question we ask every year at this time.

Is that a good thing? What’s better heading into the postseason? Clinching early and getting rest to align the rotation and heal the aches and pains, and then turn the switch back on for the playoffs? Or racing to the finish line because there’s something still at stake and getting little time to exhale before the playoffs?

The Giants did it three different ways during their championship runs.

They won the NL West on the final day in 2010, cruised into the 2012 postseason by winning the division by eight games and clinched a 2014 wild-card spot with four games to play, three of which they won.

The last time the A’s made the playoffs, in 2014, they owned the best record for most of the season but collapsed and posted the worst second-half winning percentage in history for a playoff team. They dropped 30 of their final 46 and backed into a playoff spot on the final day, and the wild-card game was a microcosm of the season, the A’s zooming ahead and collapsing in the end.

Evidently, momentum heading into October helps.

On the other hand, the 2000 Yankees finished the regular season with a seven-game losing streak and dropped 15 of their final 18 — and still won the World Series. But those Yankees were October-tested with four championships in five years.

These A’s will be new to the postseason. Jed Lowrie is the lone holdover from 2014, and only Lowrie, Piscotty and Jonathan Lucroy from the everyday lineup have been to the playoffs.

It would help to accentuate the importance of staying sharp in the final games before meeting the Yankees, and Piscotty can speak from experience on the subject.

“Everyone here seems very loose, very hungry. You don’t need to light a fire beneath anyone,” Piscotty said. “I want to get to the postseason because I want to see what this team can do doing what we’ve done. I don’t think anything needs to change.”

Around the majors

 If Mike Scioscia’s last game managing at the Coliseum was Thursday, he hopes not to remember it. A 21-3 loss to the A’s, the most lopsided in Angels’ history, in which Scioscia used catcher Francisco Arcia as a pitcher. It was quite embarrassing. Folks paid money to see competition, and Arcia simply lobbed balls across the plate in the seventh and eighth innings, seemingly softer than some batting-practice pitches. At least other position players summoned to pitch try to get outs. But it’s understandable. Teams don’t want their guys getting hurt doing something foreign and tell them to ease up. Nevertheless, Arcia wound up as the happiest player in history on the wrong end of an 18-run loss as the first player to pitch, catch and homer in the same game.

 It doesn’t matter if a team is playing for nothing in the final weeks when greatness is in the house, and it was a pleasure to watch the Angels’ Mike Trout make his final 2018 visit to Oakland and hit his 35th and 36th homers. A’s pitchers were aggressive against Trout, who wasn’t walked once in the series though he’s the league leader with 115, one shy of his career high, including a league-high 23 intentional walks. He also tops the league in on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS. He’s not expected to win his third MVP award (thank you, Mookie Betts), but will get plenty of love on the ballot, as always. He finished second three times and fourth once. Imagine how many MVPs he would have had if the Angels were a consistent playoff team. Barry Bonds, with a record seven, would be worried.

 One of our favorite Trout memories wasn’t on the field but on the court, when he and some teammates walked a few feet from the Coliseum to the arena to catch a Warriors practice and shoot a few hoops. In street clothes and wearing a credential over his neck, Trout threw down a one-handed dunk, not bad for a center fielder with a linebacker’s body.

 Billy O’Dell, who died Sept. 12 at 85, was part of the Giants’ heralded 1962 rotation, one of the best in franchise history. The lefty won a career-high 19 games and got the Game 1 start in the World Series, which is a story in itself. After beating the Dodgers in a best-of-three tiebreaker to win the pennant, the Giants flew back to San Francisco and were greeted at the airport by a throng of fans (estimates running as high as 75,000) and couldn’t get to the terminal, let alone into taxis. “I can’t believe,” O’Dell said, “that here I’m hitchhiking home in the dark and I have to start the World Series the next day.” O’Dell gave up two first-inning runs and followed with five scoreless innings, but the Yankees won 6-2 and took the Series in seven. O’Dell twice appeared in relief, pitching three innings for the save in Game 4 and two scoreless innings in the finale, a 1-0 loss that ended when Willie McCovey lined out with runners at second and third.

Tony Avelar / Associated Press Stephen Piscotty (right) and Jed Lowrie are two of only three A’s players in the everyday lineup who have been to the playoffs. Catcher Jonathan Lucroy is the other.