It happend again. After playing great baseball for 162 games, the Oakland A’s flammed out in the playoffs getting beat 5-1 by the Tampa Bay Rays in the One Game Wild Card Playoff. This is the third consecutive time the A’s have lost a game in this format and the ninth time out of ten chances they’ve been bounced in the first round of the playoffs. Their one success was when they got past the Minnisota Twins in 2006, only to be swept by the Detriot Tigers in the League Championship Series. The baseball world is at a loss to explain why the A’s are unable to have success in the postseason, which A’s Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations Billy Beane, famously calls a crap shoot.
Let’s look at this a bit closer. Since the year 2000, in addition to watching the A’s appear in the post season 10 times, we’ve watched the Giants go seven times, appearing in four World Series and wining three. The three championships coming under the guidance of Manager Bruce Bochy.
As the season was coming to the end and Bochy was preparing for retirement, current and former players were giving tributes to Bochy. The consistant theme was that he had a special skill in navigating teams through the postseason. He had his team prepared, he was a calming force, and was always a step or two ahead of the opposing manager. As I look back, the specific examples, this makes total sense:
- Game 6, 2010 National League Championship Series against Philadelphia; With the Giants down 2-0 in the 2nd inning, Jonathan Sanchez hits Chase Uttley with a pitch, has words with him, and seems to have a meltdown. As the benches and bullpens start to clear relief pitcher Jeremy Affeldt heads out of the bullpen to join the fracus. Bullpen Coach Mark Gardner stops him, tells him to keep warming up so he’s prepared to come into the game. He gets the Giants out of the jam and they Giants go onto win that game and clinch a spot in the World Series.
- Game 2, 2014 National League Championship Series against Washington; The Giants, down 1-0 most of the game, tied it in the 9th. Neither team scored again until Branden Belt hit a home run in the 18th. Along with Bruce Bochy, I give credit to Buster Posey who not only caught every inning of that game, he caught every inning of every postseason game that Bochy managed for the Giants. Whether he’s hitting well or not, when he’s behind the plate, Posey is and is the manager of the pitching staff.
In their championship years, the Giants were underdogs in every series they played. Bochy and Posey were major reasons that they won.
Since the year 2000, everything that has gone right for the Giants has gone wrong for the A’s. Look no farther than baserunning blunders and bullpen meltdowns:
- Game 3 2001 American League Divisonal Series; After winning the first two games in New York, the A’s had three chances to wrap up the series and move onto the next round. With the A’s down 1-0, Jeremy Giambi inexplicity doesn’t slide on a close play at the plate, gets tagged out, A’s lose the game 1-0 and New York goes on the win the series.
- Game 3 2003 American League Division Series; After winning the first two games in Oakland, the A’s had three chances to wrap up the series and move onto the next round. Miguel Tejada and Eric Byrnes each make base running blunders at home plate in the same inning costing the A’s at least two runs. They lose that game in extra innings, and Boston goes on to win the series.
- Wild card game 2014; Brandon Moss hits two home runs and the A’s take 7-3 lead into the 8th inning. Royals start stealing bases, Jon Lester gets flustered, and the Royals tie the game in the 9th. A’s score a run in the 12th to take the lead, Royals score two in the bottom of the 12th to win.
Over the last 20 years, the A’s have lost this postseason series in every way imaginable, base running blunders, blown saves, and lack of hitting. For every double play ground ball Affeldt or Javey Lopez got for the Giants, there was an inferno by Keith Foulke, Billy Koch, or Sean Doolittle. The one thing we never saw was an A’s catcher providing steady leadership for a pitcher or an A’s manager out manuvering the opposing manager. It’s not a crapshoot Billy.
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