The Oakland A's celebrated with champagne despite losing tonight to the Seattle Mariners 4-3. Earlier in the evening, the Cleveland Indians were defeated 8-2 by the Washington Nationals. This gave the A's their second straight AL Wild Card berth.
Much like a year ago, the A's struggled out of the gate. On May 14th, the A's were 19-25. But an 11 game winning streak would follow en route to a 77-39 record since. Matt Chapman, Marcus Semien and Matt Olson all had standout seasons along with the spectacular defense of Ramon Laureano.
The A's will face the Tampa Bay Rays who punched their post-season ticket with a 6-2 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays. This marks the Rays fifth post-season appearance, but first since 2013 when they won an AL Wild Card berth. The Rays were in first place in the AL East through mid-May. Although the Yankees would eventually dominate the division, the Rays hung onto the AL Wild Card virtually the entire season. Tommy Pham, Avisail Garcia and Austin Meadows were solid with Travis d'Arnaud getting a new lease on life after failed stints with the Mets and Dodgers. While last year's Cy Young winner Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow couldn't stay healthy, Charlie Morton and an array of openers and closers picked up the slack.
It's a shame one of these teams will have their playoff dreams ended on one night. But I believe this will be one spectacular game that could easily go 15 innings come Wednesday night.
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