Photo credit: athleticsnation.com

By Amaury Pi-Gonzalez

This Saturday, the Oakland Athletics will conclude their crucial nine-game homestand hosting the San Francisco Giants for the last two games this year against their Bay Area rivals. The A’s won three of four against the Astros and swept the Yankees in three games. Those are the best two teams in the American League this season. So, with the thought in mind, could the A’s shock the baseball world and win the World Series?

Beginning tomorrow against the Giants, the A’s have 35 games left this season — 15 at home and 20 on the road.

Included in those 15 at the Coliseum, they still have to play a game suspended in May while at Comerica Park in Detroit, which began at the bottom of the seventh inning with the A’s ahead 5-3. It will be resumed when the Tigers visits Oakland on September 6, prior to that night’s scheduled game at 7:07 p.m.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The A’s have to play these teams during the remaining of their schedule:

The Good
Yankees and Astros

The Bad
Giants, Angels and Rangers

The Ugly
Tigers, Royals and Mariners

The beauty of this game is that at any given moment a last place team at anytime at the end of the season can beat a good team like the A’s. Some of these teams with no chance are like the house party with one guy you invited that spoils the whole thing. Therefore, do not trash Detroit, Kansas City or Seattle, but keep in mind those three teams combined are on their way to losing more than 250 games.

The wild card situation looks good for the A’s, and as of now, Tampa Bay and Cleveland are the competitors. The A’s are a good bet to make it as a wild card, but after that, all bets are off. Last year, the A’s won 97 games and lost the whole season in 3.25 hours on October 3 at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. There is a chance if they win the wild card game this October, they will have to play the Yanks again, but in the best of five divisional series. The way they have played the Yanks would not be bad, but there is one exception: Playoff baseball is a total different animal that regular season.

The A’s last World Series title was 30 years ago. That was one of the best A’s teams ever during a stretch of three consecutive trips to the October Classic. One of my favorite quotes about the World Series comes from Bay Area native Dennis Eckersley after the A’s defeated the Giants in 1989.

“But more important than personal awards is winning the World Series. That’s the max that anyone could ask for. Let alone to have the ball in your in your glove for the final out of the World Series. That was the ultimate.” — Dennis Eckersley