A’s defeat Chicago, Astros next in playoffs
Oakland wins first postseason series since ’06 with victory over Chicago
OAKLAND » The Oakland A’s took the Chicago White Sox’s best punch and didn’t flinch. They overcame a tape-measure home run and a three-run deficit to advance to the American League Division Series for the first time since 2013 with a 6- 4 win Thursday afternoon.
The A’s snap a nine-game losing streak in winner-take- all games dating back to 2000. The last time the A’s won a winnertake-all was Game 7 of the 1973 World Series against the Mets. They’ll play their division foe, the Houston Astros, next.
Thursday’s game saw 17 total pitchers take the mound.
The A’s were the lesser offender, but veteran starter
Mike Fiers found trouble early. The White Sox were all over his high-80s fastball, as evidenced by José Abreu’s 116 mph single that set the table for Chicago’s first scoring opportunity Fiers managed to weasel out of.
Rookie of the year candidate Luis Robert got barrel on a middle-middle fastball and launched it 487 feet into the left-field bleachers for the White Sox’s first run. Fiers answered
with a pair of strikeouts, but Nick Madrigal flipped the lineup with a single and Tim Anderson got his eighth hit of the series before a Yasmani Grandal walk. That prompted an early call to the bullpen for Yusmeiro Petit, who got Abreu into an inning- ending ground out.
Fiers ended the day with 1 2/3-inning outing, allowing one run on five hits. But the White Sox had Petit squared up, knocking back-to-back-to-back hits for a pair of runs in the third inning.
Then, a seismic shift. The White Sox started to run out of arms in their young bullpen.
Chicago manager Rick Renteria pulled starter Dane Dunning with two outs down in the first inning with a pair of hits allowed. Rookie Garrett Crochet, who can throw a 102 mph fastball, shut down the threat and looked cleared for a few innings until his arm started to feel stiff and he left with trainers.
The A’s found a crack of light in Chicago’s bullpen train. Sean Murphy, arguably the A’s best hitter of late, took reliever Codi Heuer deep with a 424foot, two-run home run that cut Oakland’s deficit to one run.
Renteria pulled Heuer and opted for left-hander Carlos Rodón to face Tommy La Stella, who worked a walk. Marcus Semien followed with a single and Renteria intentionally walked Chad Pinder — who subbed in for Jake Lamb at third — to get to Mark Canha.
Canha and Olson worked back-to-back walks to give the A’s the 4-3 lead.
Frankie Montas would have been an ideal starter for this do- or- die game. But, after a few injuries and stalls during the regular season, the right
hander didn’t find his mechanics and confidence until his last start Sunday, where he threw 113 pitches.
He’s durable, though, and looked stellar in his relief appearance, painting 97 mph fastballs with a nice splitter and slider. He allowed the game-tying run in the fifth inning, though, and was pulled after throwing 34 pitches in two innings.
But the A’s lathered something up against Chicago reliever Evan Marshall in the fifth. The righthander couldn’t quite find the strike zone, and the
three-batter minimum rule gave the A’s full chance to take the lead. With two outs, Marshall walked a pair and La Stella reached on a catcher’s interference. Pinder came up with the big hit, slicing a ball past Anderson’s glove at short to score two.
It only seemed fitting that the A’s most valuable asset, it’s bullpen, seal the deal for the A’s.
The A’s bullpen — JB Wendelken, Lou Trivino, Jake Diekman and Joakim Soria — managed to bob and weave through traffic for three scoreless innings.