Oakland Athletics: Complete breakdown of the Wild Card Game

It all comes down to one game for the Oakland Athletics. 97 wins don’t mean anything if they can’t advance further in the playoffs than they did last year.

The Oakland Athletics put their season on the line in the one-game Wild Card playoff against the Tampa Bay Rays on Wednesday. Will they prevail against a great pitching team in the Rays?

The Tampa Bay Rays have been one of the best pitching teams in the league this year as the second-best club in team ERA (3.65) and third-best club in batting average against (.230).

Charlie Morton will be on the hill for the Rays and he has had a CY Young-caliber type season with a 16-6 record, a 3.05 ERA, and 240 punch-outs (the most he’s ever had in a single season).

Morton also possesses one of, if not the best curveball in baseball at the current moment which he throws more than any other pitch of his at 37%. His curveball is also tops in the league among starting pitchers at 18.6 average inches of horizontal movement.

136 of his 240 strikeouts have come by way of that curveball so the Athletics have themselves a tough task to overcome if they want to move on to the Divisional Round.

It’s always tough to predict how one baseball game is going to go, especially in the postseason. But a good way to gauge it is in the pitching matchup, which right now favors Tampa Bay in that Morton is better than any of the A’s starters (I think that’s fair to say).

It’s also not too encouraging that Morton has faced Oakland twice this year and has pitched to a 1-0 record with 13.1 innings of work, one earned run, and 13 strikeouts in those two games.

And, Morton has had a very good September with a 3-0 record and 2.73 ERA. Oh, and he also closed out the 2017 World Series for Houston.

Okay, enough back-patting of Charlie Morton. We get it, he’s a great pitcher.

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Here’s what the A’s have on their side.

Home field advantage. They have the fourth-best home record in the Major Leagues at 52-29. They’ve also been in this very game exactly one year ago when they had to play the New York Yankees in the Bronx. So, they have experience under this type of pressure cooker.

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What do they have this year that they lacked last year? Well, the bullpen was very good in 2019, but not as dominant as it was in 2018. However, the starting pitching was head and shoulders above where it was in 2018 this season.

In last year’s Wild Card game, the A’s had to rely on their bullpen to carry the load. Liam Hendriks started. Lou Trivino had to come in earlier than expected. The bullpen got taxed in that game and didn’t perform very well.

This year, they have options at starter to go to. They have Mike Fiers, who’s had a phenomenal season at 15-4 with a 3.90 ERA. But they ultimately decided to go with their ace, Sean Manaea, who returned earlier than expected from shoulder surgery on September 1st and has pitched to a 4-0 record and 1.21 ERA since then.

These A’s have a legit starter to turn to in this game, plus a very good bullpen that has experience. Not to mention, they’ll have the two best players on the field come Tuesday in Marcus Semien and Matt Chapman — both of whom were not as great last year at this time.