Rays 5, Athletics 1
One winner-take-all "wildcard" game to determine who goes on to play Houston in the American League Division Series.
Attendance: 54,005. Oakland Coliseum.
The Rays were a game worse than Oakland in the regular season standings, 96-66 to 97-65. That gave the A's a huge home-field advantage, because they got 54,000 rabid, towel-waving fans to support their home team. To say it was a hostile work environment for the Rays is to understate their disadvantage--by a lot.
And then to make the matter worse, A's manager Bob Melvin started his six-five southpaw Sean Manaea, the one they call the "Throwin' Samoan," who was 4-0 in his last five starts with a 0.78 ERA and a strikeout per inning. He'd only given up four earned runs over that stretch. Rays manager Kevin Cash was forced to counter with his right-handed lineup when he would rather have fielded his better hitting left-handed lineup.
And then Cash came up with a major surprise. Yandy Diaz, who had played in the last game of the year against Toronto after missing more that two months on the IL, was selected for the Wild Card roster, presumably as either a DH or PH. But at game time, Cash put him at first base, hitting leadoff.
Of course it was no surprise at all that Cash chose "Ground Chuck" Charlie Morton, the ace of the staff at 16-6 (3.05), to start the game.
In the top of the first, with 54,000 screaming A's fans cheering the home team, Diaz picked out a pitch that was out over the plate and hit it into the right field bleachers. The crowd never quite recovered, especially after in the top of the second, Avisail Garcia hammered a ball halfway up the centerfield green monster with an exit velocity of 115.2 mph. And in the third, with his second at-bat, Diaz homered again, an almost identical ball to his first inning homer. In the fifth, Tommy Pham homered too. The crowd was still hopeful, but it wasn't raucous any longer.
Also quieting the crowd was Morton's pitching, which wasn't spectacular by any means. But it was good enough. In the first inning he walked two and gave up a single to load the bases before getting Jurickson Profar on a fly ball. The A's faithful had to know that squandering an early opportunity against a good team was a bad omen.
Morton lasted five innings (94 pitches) for the win. The only run he allowed was unearned coming in on a two-base throwing error and a sacrifice fly. But the reliable bullpen shut down the A's for the rest of the way. Diego Castillo pitched two innings of scoreless ball, allowing two hits and striking out three. Nick Anderson came on to pitch the eighth and get the first man in the ninth before Emilio Pagan came on to get the last two outs.
The Wild Card Game against the best two runners-up in each league has come in for criticism because it is just a one game, winner-takes-all showdown. Baseball doesn't work that way as a rule. Teams always have a series to iron out wrinkles, make adjustments, find a winning formula. But that's not how it works for the Wild Card Game, which always leaves one team exasperated and frustrated--and heading home for the winter.
For the Rays it's on to Houston to play the best team in baseball. They had better hope there is still a supply of magic in Kevin Cash's bag of tricks. But it is good to recall that the first four-game series of the season was against the Astros and that the Rays took that series, three games to one. It's happened before, it can happen again.
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