Oakland Athletics 2013 Season in Review

October 10, 2013; Oakland, CA, USA; Detroit Tigers relief pitcher Joaquin Benoit (53, left) and catcher Alex Avila (13) celebrate after game five of the American League divisional series playoff baseball game against the Oakland Athletics at O.co Coliseum. The Tigers defeated the Athletics 3-0. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

OCTOBER

For their regular season efforts, the A’s get a rematch of last year’s ALDS against the Detroit Tigers, who headed into the playoffs having lost five of their final seven while dealing with limiting injuries to their MVP third baseman Miguel Cabrera. Still, the Tigers were considered the more experienced, playoff-tested group after getting to the World Series in 2012 and reaching the American League Championship in 2011. The main concern for Oakland was the vaunted pitching staff of Detroit, led by likely Cy Young winner Max Scherzer, with a rotation rounded out by former MVP and Cy Young winner Justin Verlander, AL ERA leader Anibal Sanchez, and quality fourth starter Doug Fister. The A’s countered with a resurgent Bartolo Colon, the latest Oakland pitching prodigy in Sonny Gray, the consistently excellent Jarrod Parker and the very talented Dan Straily lined up for Game 4. The A’s get to open the series at home, as opposed to last year’s ALDS where they had the better record and had to travel to Detroit for the start of the series, eventually falling behind 0-2.

In Game 1, the Tigers jumped on Colon in the first, and the 40-year-old looked rusty after a seven-day layoff between starts. Detroit touched him up for all three of their runs in the game on four hits in the opening inning. Scherzer shut down the A’s hitters, striking out 11 and allowing only three hits in seven innings on the mound. Yoenis Cespedes finally got the A’s on the board with a tw0-run shot to left with one out in the bottom of the seventh, but Oakland couldn’t rally against Drew Smyly and Joaquin Benoit in the final two innings and fell behind 0-1 in the series with a 3-2 loss.

That put the pressure on Sonny Gray to go toe-to-toe with Verlander in Game 2, and the rookie delivered in a big way, striking out nine Detroit hitters in eight innings to keep the game deadlocked in a 0-0 tie after Verlander threw seven frames with only four hits surrendered and 11 K’s. In the bottom of the ninth Cespedes and Seth Smith lead off with singles off of Al Alburquerque, which leads to an intentional walk of Josh Reddick. Rick Porcello is brought in to face Stephen Vogt, and the journeyman catcher connects for a line drive to left field to score the winning run and even the series 1-1.

Game 3 was quiet early, although Oakland was making contact consistently against Anibal Sanchez. Parker was sharp, and in the top of the third he got a 1-0 lead to work with when Cespedes hit a hard grounder off the glove of Miguel Cabrera at third, scoring Coco Crisp with a two-out single. They kept it up with two runs in the fourth, a solo home run to lead off the inning by Reddick and a sacrifice fly by Crisp to follow up a triple by Vogt. The Tigers answered back with a three-run bottom of the fourth to tie the game, but Oakland pulls away thanks to home runs by Brandon Moss and Smith in the fifth to secure a 6-3 victory, with Dan Otero, Sean Doolittle and Grant Balfour combining to allow only two hits with three strikeouts over the final four innings.

In Game 4, Jed Lowrie broke out of an extended slump to give the A’s a 3-0 lead after four and a half innings with an RBI single in the first and two-run homer in the top of the fifth off of Doug Fister. Dan Straily glided through the first four innings, striking out four and allowing only one baserunner on a hit-by-pitch. The Tigers came back to tie the game on a three-run shot by Jhonny Peralta in the bottom of the fifth, and when both starters were pulled after the sixth, a back-and-forth game ensued. First, Game 1 star Scherzer came out of the bullpen and gave up the g0-ahead run in the seventh, but Sean Doolittle gave up a solo shot to Victor Martinez that appeared to be interfered with by fans at the wall in right field as Reddick went up to make the catch. The home run was upheld after a replay review, and Austin Jackson added an RBI single to put Detroit up 5-4. In the eighth, Moss drew a leadoff walk against Scherzer, followed by a double by Yoenis Cespedes to put two men on with no outs. Scherzer intentionally walked Smith with an open base, and what followed would be the defining moment of the series: a full count strikeout of Reddick, getting him to swing on ball four, a quick dispatching of Vogt, and a lineout by Alberto Callaspo to strand all three runners and preserve the one-run lead. That was followed by a fateful bottom of the eighth, where Ryan Cook came in to get two quick outs before giving up a single and a walk, which prompted Bob Melvin to bring in Brett Anderson. That proved to be the wrong move when Anderson walked the bases loaded and threw a wild pitch to give the Tigers an unearned run, and they made it 8-4 when Omar Infante hit a two-run double in the same at-bat. The A’s narrowed the lead to 8-6 when Cespedes hit a two-out, two-run line drive single in the top of the ninth, but when Seth Smith struck out to end the game, the series shifted back to Oakland with a profound sense of “What could have been” on the minds of A’s fans.

I’m not going to bother going too in-depth for Game 5. Sonny Gray did well after getting the call to pitch his team to victory, just not well enough. Justin Verlander pitched the game of his life in the exact moment he needed to, just like last season. Miguel Cabrera hit a home run. Rest assured, no A’s fan will ever have much affinity for Verlander or the Tigers after what just transpired.