Oakland Athletics clinch West Division
If your team hasn’t made it to the play-offs this year, I would put a strong guess on you now rooting for those magical, awe-inspiring and never-say-die Oakland Athletics.
Last night the A’s beat the Texas Rangers 12-5 to clinch the American League West division title, leapfrogging the Rangers for the first time all season.
The A’s hadn’t held sole possession of first place for one single day in 2012, but matched the 2006 Twins and 1951 Giants as the only teams in history to make the last day their first in pole position.
It was oh so typical of the Athletics – playing in front of 36, 067 at home – to fight back from an early deficit. They have done it all season long and weren’t in any mood to let their demeanour slip at the final hurdle.
Thanks to a five-run third, Texas were leading 5-1 after three frames, but that is when Oakland hit back, first with a huge six-run fourth innings. But the result of this game isn’t the miracle. Consider that last season Oakland posted a 74-88 record. Add that to the fact that they trailed the Rangers by as many as 13 games this year.
Remarkably, the A’s deficit behind the Rangers was a staggering five games with nine to play; the highest amount of games clawed back with less than ten games to play in history. They recovered from all of this with a woeful .238 batting average overall – which makes this the eighth-worst hitting outfit in franchise history – countering it with home runs, walk-off wins, solid defence and a whole lot of young pitching.
Oakland started out badly, with continued shuffling of players throughout spring training and early season. Read these names and then work out how differently the A’s season could have been if the original plans had come to fruition – Manny Ramirez, Bartolo Colon, Kurt Suzuki and Eric Sogard. The list goes on and these were individuals Oakland originally wanted on their team.
The gold and green delved into the fountain of youth, not least with reliever Sean Doolittle, who never before this season had pitched as a pro. This year he threw in 59 games between the majors and minors, including the final four of this regular season. Rookie Ryan Cook was called upon eight times in the final 11 games, including five in a row to close the season.
Out with the old – although they weren’t really ‘in’ – and in with the new. The new being very young, inexperienced and paid rather less lavishly than those pampered Yankee stars, who also clinched their respective division on the final day.
Only for them it was relief. They expected to get there, and in the end they did with a 14-2 rout of the Red Sox, while Baltimore have to make do with a wild card encounter against the team shocked and stunned by what the Athletics have pulled off.
For the first time in a long time – 162 games to be precise – Oakland finally has its destiny in their own hands. If they win, they continue to advance through the play-offs. It is a memorable story, one which we will no doubt re-live countless times.
But the A’s will tell you they have only just started. Game one of the division series starts Saturday against a Tigers team who will be fielding a Triple Crown winner and a certain Justin Verlander. But the adversity doesn’t bother them, nor does the pressure, and we may just see more upsets this October in what has already been a truly great baseball year.