It’s finally the best time of the year. We’ve waited for six months to get to this point, and after Tuesday night, we’re down to nine teams left. On Wednesday, we eliminate one more. Two teams that probably were not favored to be here this late in the season will do battle in the American League Wild Card Game.
Tampa Bay will travel across the country to take on Oakland in a do-or-die game, win or go home. After the Yankees and Astros, the Oakland Athletics were the next best team in the American League, record-wise, at 97-65. Even the Tampa Bay Rays finished with a better record than the AL Central champion Minnesota Twins with 96 wins. And yet, one of those teams will be sent packing after what is sure to be a terrific playoff game.
Probable Pitchers
For the visiting Rays, Charlie Morton will take the mound. The Rays, who never really spend big on free agents, gave Morton $30 million in this offseason over a two-year contract. Morton, in turn, delivered a terrific season as the Rays’ ace. He finished the season 16-6, a career high in wins, with a 3.05 ERA, which was a career-low.
That was the theme of Morton’s season, hitting career highs in a lot of major categories. At 35 years old, Morton had his highest K/9 in a season at 11.10, his lowest BB/9 at 2.64 and the lowest WHIP at 1.08. He’s also giving up nothing in terms of home runs, only 10.4 HR/FB%.
Morton is also coming off a dominant month of September, where he pitched 29 2/3 innings accompanied with a 2.73 ERA and an opponent’s batting average under .200.
The Athletics have chosen to go with Sean Manaea, which is the right choice. Manaea has been absolutely terrific since returning to the rotation after an injury. Across five starts, Manaea is 4-0 with 1.21 (!!) ERA. After back-to-back solid seasons in 2017 and 2018, Manaea is showing he has true ace potential.
Batters To Watch
The Rays have been a pretty middle-of-the-road hitting team this season, largely counting on their pitching to win games. If the Rays want to win this game, relying on their outfield duo of Tommy Pham and Austin Meadows would be a good way to go. Meadows, in particular, is red-hot. He finished September with a .378 average with nine home runs and 20 RBI. Meadows finished the season with a .273 average and 21 home runs.
Much like the Rays will rely on their outfield duo, the Athletics should and will rely on their corner infield duo of Matt Olson and Matt Chapman. The unfortunate part for the A’s is that Olson and Chapman are both coming off pretty rough months of September. Chapman batted only .178 in 108 plate appearances and Olson .263 in 111 PAs.
The beautiful thing about a one-game Wild Card is that average doesn’t mean as much as say, home runs do. Olson and Chapman, while having two of their worst batting months of the year, still combined to hit 15 homers and record 39 RBI in September.
The Pick
This can be and should be a very close game. Morton has only allowed one run in two starts this season to the A’s, and historically he has dominated them. Manaea is on an absolute tear of his own as well. Both teams are just average hitting teams, so this game very well could end up being a pitcher’s duel.
The impressive thing is that both team’s bullpens have incredibly similar stats in terms of ERA, K/9, BB/9 and saves. I’m going to go with the A’s in this one because they have more potential to hit game-changing home runs with the likes of Olson, Chapman, Marcus Semien, Khris Davis and Mark Canha.
