Is it better to be lucky or good?
How about being both?
That formula for the A’s Wednesday, as they beat the Chicago White Sox 5-3 in Game 2 of their Wild Card Series to save their season.
It was stressful in the end — demons like the kind the A’s have don’t go away easily — but Oakland avoided a seventh-straight postseason loss, setting up a winner-take-all Game 3 on Thursday, where they’ll face a few more demons.
Oakland has lost nine straight winner-take-all contests — you have to go back to the 1973 World Series to find their last win under the circumstances.
But the A’s fortune might have changed heading into Game 3.
One trend-defying win might just beget another on Thursday.
The A’s found luck early in Game 2, when, with the bases loaded and two outs in the first, a should-be-inning-ending ground ball to White Sox second baseman Nick Madrigal took a late hop over his glove, allowing two runs to score.
The sun might have obscured by haze, but the baseball gods were smiling upon the A’s — a novel change from what had to feel like constant damnation for Oakland over the last few seasons, and perhaps even the last few decades.
And all that pressure and tension that the A’s were carrying onto the field — well, it seemed to lift with that break.
Their talent took them the rest of the way.
Marcus Semien, mired in a slump that seemingly lasted the full season, hit a two-run home run in the second.
More tension released.
Mark Canha made a spectacular catch — reminiscent of Joe Rudi’s in the 1972 World Series — to prevent two runs from scoring in the bottom half of the frame.
A bit more tension drifted away.
Chris Bassitt threw seven strong innings, scattering six hits and capping the greatest September for a pitcher in A’s history, and handed a 5-0 lead to closer Liam Hendricks in the eighth.
At that point the A’s were lying in a hammock, drinking a piña colada.
Perhaps they released a bit too much tension. Things can never that easy for the A’s in the playoffs.
Hendricks subsequently went about squandering Oakland’s once significant lead. Closers — even the best closers — never seem to fare all that well in non-save situations.
Chicago scored two in the eighth with Yasmani Grandal’s home run and another in the ninth with a Grandal bases-loaded walk, leading to Jake Diekman entering the game with the bags still packed with Sox.
The lefty was able to get the presumptive American League MVP, Jose Abreu, to ground out to second, to end the game.
But don’t let the late-inning struggle distract you. The A’s performance Wednesday was the kind we’ve come to expect from the Pachyderms in every game other than one in the postseason.
They just needed that early lucky bounce to right the ship and remind them that, yeah, they’re pretty good.
In addition to Semien getting off the schneid, Khris Davis hit a homer Wednesday, too. I’d imagine that it’ll be Olson’s turn in Thursday’s Game 4 when Dane Dunning, a rookie right-hander, is expected to start for Chicago.
Now don’t get me wrong, Thursday’s game is going to be excruciating. Both teams are likely to give their starting pitchers short leashes — the A’s are likely to go with Mike Fiers opposite Dunning — and we should see a few starting pitchers coming out of the bullpen in this game in addition to the ace relievers, which will include Hendricks, per A’s manager Bob Melvin.
The White Sox showed too much power in Game 1 and too much scrap in Game 2 to say that momentum in this series has shifted towards Oakland after Wednesday, but the A’s should feel liberated after staving off elimination.
It’s a toss-up game if there ever was one — but at least the A’s won’t feel as if the baseball gods have it out for them anymore.
As I wrote before this series, if the A’s can take down the White Sox, they can go the distance in the American League.
And if any extra motivation was needed, the Astros — those dastardly, cheating Astros — loom in the next round for the winner.
But first, Thursday. Two outstanding teams. One game. Nothing held back because the winner takes it all.
Yes, the A’s will look to fend off their final demon of playoff hell.
But if you love the sport, this is baseball heaven.
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