Early HR helps Yankees foil Oakland’s plans
NEW YORK — Really, from mid-June on, the A’s proved to be ahead of schedule, turning into a much better team than almost anyone had anticipated except, perhaps, the players themselves.
Before bowing out quietly in a 7-2 loss to the Yankees on Wednesday in the American League wild-card game that featured a failed pitching experiment and next to no hitting, the work the A’s did in 2018 was spectacular, making yet another early postseason ouster all the more disheartening.
“Obviously, that’s not how you want to go out, but there’s only going to be one team that’s happy at the end,” third baseman Matt Chapman said.
“We were happy to be here but we wanted to win and we expected to win, so it is disappointing. But coming into a season where no one expected us to do anything, what we achieved we should be proud of. I think it’s just the beginning for us.”
Even with an entirely new rotation by August and numerous other late additions, plus one of the game’s smallest payrolls, Oakland was the best team in the majors from June 16 on and won 97 games overall, the team’s most since Oakland won 103 in 2002. And after three consecutive last-place finishes, the A’s were back in the postseason.
The stay was brief. Oakland has played in two wild-card games, including 2014’s classic against the Royals, and dropped both. The team has advanced beyond the first round of the playoffs once in nine tries since 2000, and the A’s record in clinch games is 1-14 in that time.
Oakland’s unconventional pitching arrangement did not work to plan, either for opener Liam Hendriks or for Blake Treinen, who was called into action in the sixth inning, a staggeringly early call for the All-Star closer.
Treinen, almost untouchable all season, took the mound with Oakland trailing 3-0, a man at third after a wild pitch by Fernando Rodney and a 1-0 count on Giancarlo Stanton. Treinen walked Stanton, and then couldn’t put away Luke Voit. Voit fouled off three two-strike pitches before whistling a triple to right that scored two. “Pretty good AB,” catcher Jonathan Lucroy said. “You’ve kind of got to tip your cap on that one.”
Voit then scored on a sacrifice fly by Didi Gregorius, three quick runs on Treinen’s watch in an inning he’s unfamiliar working.
“We were all kind of prepared for anything,” Treinen said. “The situation itself wasn’t ideal by any means, but we’ve been so good all year at picking each other up. I just didn’t do a good job of executing pitches. I left mistakes up late, and I give them credit for fouling off some really good sinkers.
“More times than not, I think that’s going to go in our favor, but Stanton and Voit really did a good job battling off pitches and extending the inning . ... Kind of tough to swallow, coming this late in the year.”
During the season, Treinen was nails. He set a major-league record for lowest ERA by a pitcher with 75 or more innings, at 0.78, and he did not allow an earned run in his final 15 appearances. He’d pitched in the seventh inning once in 2018, but not in the sixth.
“That’s the guy we want on the mound no matter what,” Chapman said. “He’s the guy we’ve looked to all year and who’s carried us, been pretty much an MVP guy for us. He came into a situation he’s not always accustomed to but I know he wanted the ball, and that’s who we wanted on the mound.”
Treinen did not give up more than one earned run in any outing all year, but on Wednesday, he was charged with three — one on Giancarlo Stanton’s monster homer into the second deck in left in the eighth.
Hendriks, who had not allowed a run in his final seven outings when used to start games, looked a bit overwhelmed from the get-go. He walked leadoff man Andrew McCutchen, then Aaron Judge followed by crushing a homer to left to give the Yankees a 2-0 lead.
“I got into some bad counts and they made me pay,” Hendriks said. “Not the way we wanted to go out, but we’ve firmly implanted ourselves in everybody’s minds that we’re going to be here for a long time. We have a bunch of young guys who are hungry and want to win.”
Oakland’s issues Wednesday had as much to do with New York’s pitchers as they did with the A’s mound machinations. Any pitcher on the planet could give up a two-run homer to Judge, but the intriguing performance came from starter Luis Severino, who walked four batters but didn’t allow a hit until the fifth, when Lucroy smacked a leadoff single and Nick Martini added another base hit.
Dellin Betances replaced Severino and got soft flyballs from Chapman and Jed Lowrie and struck out Khris Davis, the major-league home run leader.
Severino’s best work came in the fourth when, with two on after an error and a walk, he got Stephen Piscotty to fly out to right. After a walk to Ramon Laureano loaded the bases, Severino struck out Marcus Semien to end the inning.
“We couldn’t get that big knock,” Lucroy said. “They pitched us well.”
The A’s did not score until the eighth, their favorite inning all season, when, with Lowrie at first after a forceout, Davis parked a homer into the short porch in right off Zach Britton.
“It’s pretty hard, but I’m not disappointed at all,” Davis said of the sudden end. “We showed some people we can do some things, and I think next year we’re a little bit more of a threat. I hope we can continue this and build on it.”