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| Oakland Athletics relief pitcher Grant Balfour, top, and catcher Derek Norris celebrate after their 12-5 win over the Texas Rangers in a baseball game, Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2012 in Oakland, Calif. The A's clinch the AL West title with the win. |
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- The Oakland Athletics captured the AL West with another improbable rally in a season full of them, coming back from four runs down and a 13-game division deficit to stun the two-time defending league champion Texas Rangers 12-5 on Wednesday.
Josh
Hamilton dropped a fly ball in center field for a two-run error that
put the A's (94-68) ahead 7-5 in a six-run fourth inning.
While
Hamilton's Rangers (93-69) are headed to the new one-game, wild-card
playoff, the A's get some time off before opening the division series in
their first postseason appearance since 2006.
Both teams had to wait to learn their opponents from a pair of night games: Boston at New York, and Baltimore at Tampa Bay.
The
A's would earn the AL's No. 1 seed if the Yankees lose, and open the
division series at the winner of Friday's wild-card playoff featuring
the Rangers. If New York wins, Oakland would be the No. 2 seed and begin
at Detroit.
The A's needed a sweep and they
delivered to win their first division crown in six years and 15th in
all. They overcame a five-game deficit in the final nine days and took
sole possession of the West's top spot for the first time this year.
"It
shows how important Game 162 is," Oakland's Jonny Gomes said. "I don't
think it took 162 to games to check the character of this ballclub."
Grant
Balfour retired Michael Young on a fly to center for the final out,
then raised his arms in the air as the A's streamed out of the dugout
and began bouncing up and down in the infield.
"2012 AL WEST CHAMPIONS" flashed on the scoreboard.
Make
it two champagne celebrations in three days for these A's. They
clinched a playoff spot Monday and held a wild dance party in the
clubhouse.
This time - in new gray AL West
champion T-shirts - players took a victory lap through the rundown
Coliseum, where the outfield still has a light patch of grass from
football in the venue shared by the NFL's Raiders.
While
the A's players circled the field, injured infielder Brandon Inge
sprinted toward the right-field bleachers by himself, raised a gray
T-shirt to the crowd then began dancing alone.
Soon, the celebratory champagne and beer made its way to the field - and players sprayed it into the stands.
Players came back onto the field almost an hour later to greet the fans still gathered along the top of the dugout.
Oakland
pulled off another remarkable performance in a season defined by
thrilling walkoffs, rallies and whipped-cream pie celebrations by a team
that was never supposed to be here.
A club
that trailed Texas by 13 games on June 30. A club with a $59.5 million
payroll, lowest in baseball. General manager Billy Beane found ways to
get a blue-collar franchise back to the playoffs for the first time
since being swept by Detroit in the 2006 AL championship series.
"It
was all part of the plan," Beane said before the game, planning to
watch alone from the weight room in his usual routine. "It's a good
day."
Coco Crisp hit a tying two-run double in
the fourth against Derek Holland (12-7). Brandon Moss drove in three
runs, including a two-run single in a four-run eighth.
Rookie
Evan Scribner (2-0) left the mound to a standing ovation from the
sellout crowd of 30,067 and wound up the winning pitcher. He allowed two
hits and struck out two in three scoreless innings after replacing
struggling starter A.J. Griffin.
Jerry Blevins
relieved Scribner and struck out Hamilton to end the sixth before
allowing a leadoff single to Adrian Beltre in the seventh. Ryan Cook,
pitching for a fifth consecutive game, replaced Blevins and gave up a
double to Nelson Cruz before retiring the next three Texas hitters with
strikeouts of David Murphy and Mike Napoli. Catcher Derek Norris pumped
his right arm as the Coliseum fans jumped to their feet.
Norris
then homered leading off the bottom of the eighth for his second RBI.
It was his seventh homer and Oakland's majors-leading 112th since the
All-Star break.
"Ever since Day 1 I've been
here, it's been, the A's can't compete with the payroll, can't compete
with this team or that team," Norris said. "We're better off if we're
down. It just gives us the extra energy. I hope they keep doing it."
The
A's join the NL West champion San Francisco Giants as division
champions. The Bay Area is already buzzing about a possible Bay Bridge
World Series like the 1989 championship swept by Oakland, one
interrupted by an earthquake.
Hamilton's miscue while charging forward might haunt the to-be free agent if his Rangers don't get past their wild-card game.
"I
just missed it, man," Hamilton said. "If it moves, you can make
adjustments if you break down. When you're running, you can't make the
adjustments."
These are the same Rangers who
twice came within one strike of the franchise's first World Series
championship before losing Games 6 and 7 to the wild-card St. Louis
Cardinals. It was Texas' second near miss in as many years after losing
the 2010 World Series to the Giants.
Yoenis
Cespedes punched his bat, apparently thinking he had recorded the last
out before the ball glanced off Hamilton's glove. Manager Ron Washington
stood with a stunned look in the dugout, then had an animated chat with
Hamilton once the inning ended.
Murphy's two-run single highlighted a five-run third inning that put Texas in prime position.
Moss
drew a leadoff walk from starter Ryan Dempster and Josh Reddick
followed with an RBI double. Josh Donaldson singled and Seth Smith's
base hit made it 5-3 and chased Dempster with none out and runners on
first and second.
Washington turned to the
lefty Holland, a starter who was tagged for four runs in the first
inning of the second game of Sunday's doubleheader with the Angels
before working into the seventh.
He retired
the first two batters before Crisp's double down the right-field line.
The A's batted around in the inning after Texas sent 10 to the plate in
the third. And the A's kept adding on until the end.
The
only other teams to come back from at least 13 games down to win the
division were the 1914 Boston
Braves, the 1951 New York Giants, the `78
Yankees and the `95 Seattle Mariners.
"Anything
can happen in the long season," said Rangers pitcher Yu Darvish, who
will start the wild-card game. "That's why we play 162 games. We're
going to forget about this and get ready for the next one."
Oakland
accomplished all this with an ever-changing roster managed by Bob
Melvin in his first full season as A's skipper. They lost third baseman
Scott Sizemore on the first full day of spring training workouts, never
promoted slugger Manny Ramirez from the minors before parting ways, and
dealt with devastating injuries all year long.
Opening
day starter Brandon McCarthy took a line drive to the head Sept. 5 that
required surgery and ended his season, Brett Anderson missed most of
the year coming off Tommy John surgery, and Dallas
Braden never pitched
because of shoulder problems. Starter Bartolo Colon received a 50-game
suspension in August for a positive testosterone test.
Third
baseman Inge needed shoulder surgery last month and prized Cuban rookie
Cespedes missed time with a pair of injuries in May and June.
And
that's just the beginning for a team that traded away catcher Kurt
Suzuki to the Nationals during the year after swapping three top
pitchers during the offseason - Trevor Cahill to Arizona, NL Cy Young
Award favorite and 21-game winner Gio Gonzalez to Washington and
All-Star closer Andrew Bailey to Boston.
"There
hasn't been a lot of luck involved," Beane said. "The one thing about
baseball, when you play 161 games, you don't get lucky this late in the
season. And, quite frankly, if you were to look into individual things
and events that happened, starting with the first day of full workouts
we lost our everyday third baseman. We had to figure out what we wanted
to do. We haven't had a lot of good luck. There have been a lot of
adjustments on the fly from that first full-squad workout when Sizemore
went down."
The A's, whose 14 walkoff victories lead baseball, won their seventh game this year after trailing by four or more runs.
NOTES:
The A's won the season series 11-8, just the second time in seven
seasons they've done so. ...
Texas' Geovany Soto snapped an 0-for-16
streak with a single in the third that chased Griffin. ... Texas also
scored five runs in an inning vs. the A's Tuesday night winner Travis
Blackley on Sept. 27. ... The sellout crowd included 1,000 standing-room
only tickets. ... Holland pitched in relief for the second time this
year.
