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Have the Oakland A’s Overcome Their Playoff Demons

On Thursday afternoon, fans of the Oakland Athletics found themselves in what has been a familiar 21st century nightmare for the team: a winner-take-all first round playoff game. Only this time the green and gold were the ones raging and fistpumping after the final out.

With a hard fought, gut-wrenching 6-4 victory over the Chicago White Sox, the A’s clinched the best 2-out-of-3 Wildcard Series to advance to the American League Division Series. This victory answered the first piece of the big question hindering the team in this year’s playoffs: have the A’s overcome their playoff demons? 

Not only did Thursday’s clincher give the A’s their first playoff series win since 2006, but they finally broke an insurmountable nine game winner-take-all losing skid. The A’s and their fans have every reason to celebrate, as the team overcame some past playoff woes. Come Monday however, they will be going back to work as they look to answer the next part of the question. On Monday, the A’s will begin a best 3-out-of-5 games series against their dreaded division rivals, the Houston Astros. 

While the A’s were the dominant team in the American League West this season, the Astros still looked like serious competitors. Despite countless injuries, a depleted pitching staff from previous years, and a young, inexperienced bullpen, they were able to squeeze into the playoffs for a fourth consecutive year. The A’s might look like the favorite going into the series, but nothing is guaranteed in the postseason. Just look at the upsets pulled off by teams like the Miami Marlins and Houston Astros themselves in the Wild Card round. 

The A’s were nearly victim to an upset as well against the White Sox. They were down 3-0 to start game three. This round, the team will need to brush up on some of their early starting pitching woes and take advantage of every offensive opportunity possible.  The Astros are loaded with talented, postseason experience 1-9 in the batting order.

While getting through the Wild Card Series was a huge weight off the team’s back, the A’s have not fully answered their past playoff blunders. The division round will be their next step. 

A’s manager Bob Melvin, who has been with the team since 2011, is all too familiar with losing in the playoffs. But sees something special in this particular A’s team.

“It’s really a close-knit group that’s been together for three years now, a few additions, few subtractions,” said Melvin.“All the teams are a little bit different but I really do like teams that have been together a little bit and pull for each other so much. You can’t pull an analytic number on that, that stuff outplays that. I think the thing that’s most impressive about this team is how much they pull for each other.” 

The final game of the series was a true example of the team pulling for each other when the team used eight different pitchers. Each one picked up the slack from the last and got the A’s out of major jams. The team also had lesser known names in the order step up to deliver key hits, like utility man Chad Pinder. Pinder came off the bench to give the A’s a go-ahead 2-run RBI base hit in the fifth. This would end up being the deciding runs in the game.

Pitching out of jams, making all routine and game-saving outs in the field, and well-disciplined, situational at bats were the team’s recipes for confronting past playoff demons in the Wildcard Series. The same recipe will be necessary in order for the team to overcome those demons in the division series.

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