The New York Yankees were victorious in Wednesday night’s American League Wild Card Game against the Oakland A’s and will now advance to the American League Division Series against their hated rivals, the Boston Red Sox, after their 7-2 routing of Oakland.

The New York Yankees would strike first in the bottom of the first inning after an Andrew McCutchen walk when Aaron Judge ripped a shot to left-center field off of the A’s “opener” Liam Hendriks to quickly give the Yankees a 2-0 lead. Following Judge’s blast, the Yankees would be held scoreless for the next three innings by Lou Trivino and would be held scoreless in the fifth by Shawn Kelly.

The A’s were able to keep the game close…until the sixth inning. In the bottom of the sixth, Aarons Judge and Aaron Hicks each doubled to bring in a run against reliever Fernando Rodney. Rodney then threw a wild pitch while facing slugger Giancarlo Stanton and Hicks promptly moved over to third base. A’s manager Bob Melvin would then bring in their normally dominant reliever Blake Treinen. Treinen finished off the at-bat by walking Stanton who would steal second base to put runners on second and third. Treinen then gave up a two-run single to first baseman Luke Voitto bring the score to 5-0 in the Yankees’ favor. Voit would later score on a sacrifice fly by Didi Gregorius to give the Bronx Bombers a 6-0 lead.

Luis Severino would pitch four scoreless innings for the Yankees while Dellin Betances and David Robertson also held the A’s to no runs. The only scoring that Oakland would be doing was off of Zack Britton when Khris Davis hit a 2-run shot in the eighth. Giancarlo Stanton would homer to immediately get one of those runs back and Aroldis Chapman came in in the top of the ninth with a 7-2 lead. Chapman lead off the inning by giving up a leadoff single to Marcus Semien and then proceeding to strike out veteran catcher Jonathan Lucroy and Mark Canha before getting star third baseman Matt Chapman to ground out to end the game.

The Oakland A’s had a fantastic 2018 season after being written off in July. The A’s finished their season with 97 wins and while they obviously wanted to go further, this was a big accomplishment for a team that has finished dead last in their division for the last three years. As for the Yankees, they will face off against their arch nemesis’ in the American League Division Series. This will be the first time the two rivals have met in the Postseason since 2004.

As far as Doubleday Double Talk’s Postseason Predictions are concerned…

Giuseppe – 2

Daryll – 1