IN SPORTS: A’S KNOCKED OUT OF PLAYOFFS
OAKLAND — The A’s entered Wednesday night’s American League Wild Card Game with a full house and a team seemingly poised for a playoff breakthrough.
They ended up with more heartbreak and an abrupt end to their season in a 5-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays before a seasonhigh home crowd of 54,005, a record for any Wild Card game.
It was another playoff broken record for the A’s and their fans.
The A’s, 97-game winners each of the past two seasons, have lost the Wild Card Game three times in the past six seasons and haven’t won a playoff series since the 2006 ALCS against the Twins.
Since then there have been six playoff series that went nowhere but home.
“It’s frustrating,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “It’s very sudden. In baseball, you usually have a series and can come back tomorrow (following a loss). There’s no responding in a game like this. It can be a difficult game.
“We’re proud of what we did this year. We just got beat in one game.”
Former A’s reliever Emilio Pagan put the final nail in the A’s season, striking out Marcus Semien to send Tampa Bay players streaming onto the field. The Rays’ open their ALDS series against the Astros on Friday.
One of the bright spots for the A’s on Wednesday night was rookie left-hander Jesus Luzardo, who looked every bit the part of a future franchise ace since his late-season promotion and again during his first moment on the national stage. Luzardo entered the game with the A’s trailing 5-1 in the sixth inning and struck out four and allowed one hit in three innings.
Melvin acknowledged Luzardo, who was injured most of the season, will be a member of the rotation next season. It’ll be a team Melvin expects to take another crack at getting the franchise over the playoff hump.
“We have the makings for an even better team next year,” Melvin said.
But what about those win-orout Wild Card games?
“What we need to do is win the division to play a longer series,” Melvin said.
Things unraveled quickly for the A’s on Wednesday, much like last season’s 7-2 Wild Card Game loss to the Yankees in the Bronx.
The A’s went with left-hander Sean Manaea over 15-game winner Mike Fiers against the Rays in part to take away some of Tampa Bay’s powerful left-handed bats. Manaea also had been the sharper of the two down the stretch, going 4-0 with a 1.21 ERA in five starts after coming back from shoulder surgery.
But the plan backfired on the A’s.
Manaea allowed a leadoff home run to Yandy Diaz, a righthanded batter who likely would have been on the bench if the A’s started a right-hander. It was a start reminiscent to the Yankees loss when A’s “opener” Liam Hendriks was tagged for a tworun home run by Aaron Judge in the first inning.
Manaea regrouped to strike out the next three batters, but the Rays right-handed platoon stung Manaea repeatedly.
Avisail Garcia hit a two-run homer before Manaea retired a batter in the second, and Diaz, who, because of injuries, wasn’t activated until the final day of the regular season and didn’t have a hit in the majors since July 22, homered again to lead off the third inning and end Manaea’s night.