Photo credit: @Athletics

By Amaury Pi-González

OAKLAND–The Oakland A’s celebrated their 50th anniversary season in Oakland with a 97-65 record–second place in the Western Division–and a postseason berth as the second Wild Card team behind the New York Yankees, who finished 100-62. The A’s traveled to Yankee Stadium on October 3, and were eliminated by the Yanks with a final score of 7-2.

This was the best season for the A’s since 2002 when they ended with a 103-59 record, finishing first in the Western Division. That 2002 season saw the A’s winning 20 games in a row from August 13 to September 4–a record at the time–and that season was the subject of Michael Lewis’ 2003 book Moneyball, which later was adapted to the screen as the film Moneyball in 2011.

On April 21, Sean Manaea pitched a no-hitter against the Boston Red Sox 3-0 at the Oakland Coliseum. Manaea became the first A’s pitcher to throw a no-hitter since Dallas Braden’s perfect game on Mother’s Day at the Coliseum on May 9, 2010 against Tampa Bay. Manaea’s gem came against a Red Sox team that had won eight games in a row.

In June, the A’s set a new MLB record by homering in their 25th straight road game. The previous record of 24 games had been held by the 1996 Baltimore Orioles.

The A’s hit 227 home runs, third best among all 30 MLB teams, Yankees’ 267–new MLB record–and Dodgers 235. A’s were No. 4 in most runs scored in MLB with 813 behind Red Sox’s 876, Yanks’ 851 and Indians’ 818. They were also second in total doubles with 322, only the Sox hit more doubles with 355.

DH Khris Davis became just the second player in A’s history and the first since Jimmy Foxx in 1934 to go back-to-back-to back with 40 home runs. He finished with 48 home runs, leading all of MLB. He also established a new MLB record–only man in history–ending with the exact same batting average .247 in three consecutive seasons (2016-17-18).

First baseman Matt Olson led the club playing in all 162 regular season games and also hit 29 home runs and 84 RBI–all personal bests. Also, these players enjoyed their best seasons in home runs and runs batted in: Davis’ 48 home runs and 123 RBIs, Stephen Piscotty’s 27 home runs and 88 RBIs, Matt Chapman’s 24 home runs and 68 RBIs, Jed Lowrie’s 23 home runs, 99 RBIs and his first All-Star Game, Mark Canha’s 17 home runs and 52 RBIs and Chad Pinter, who played in 110 games, and hit .258–all career-highs.

Blake Treinen had the best earned run average for a closer in the MLB with a 0.78 ERA (9-2 record) and saved 38 games in 80 1/3 innings of work and was selected to his first All-Star Game. Yusmeiro Petit led all A’s pitchers with 74 relief appearances, the most in his 11-year career.

In August, Chapman pleaded A’s fans to “come to the games” after only over 10,000 went to see the A’s play the Seattle Mariners. The attendance this year was 1,573,616–No. 27 among all 30 MLB teams, and an increase from 2017 when 1,475,721, (No. 29) watched  A’s baseball at the Coliseum.

The A’s need to have a healthy rotation. Their bullpen was great, but there is a reason the Astros, Sox, Dodgers and Brewers are still alive for a shot at entering the World Series. That reason? They all have conventional rotations. I still like the Astros to repeat as World Champions.

World Series History
Top three winning franchises: Yanks’ 27 titles, St. Louis Cardinals’ 11, A’s nine titles (five in Philadelphia and four in Oakland).