The A’s kept their season alive on Wednesday with a flurry of home runs and a surprisingly meaningful feat: They finally got to Houston’s bullpen.
It would not have taken a particularly incisive baseball mind to guess that the ‘pens would be a crucial distinguishing factor in this ALDS. After all, Oakland had one of the best relief corps in baseball this season, and Houston had an eight-rookie bullpen whose results were generally what you would expect. It would have seemed natural to assume that this dynamic would be key to their playoff series—that one team’s ability to shut down a game in the later innings would shape the arc of this match-up.