No End to A’s Magic – Or Season
By Art Spander
OAKLAND – Seth Smith said it was nothing but good baseball. It was that – is that – and more.
It’s legerdemain. It’s mystery. It’s triumph conjured up by the most unlikely group of young men this side of Cooperstown.
Most of all, it’s amazing.
There they were, the Oakland Athletics, three outs from the end of the season. And they were, sprinting around the diamond in unrestrained joy, stunning winners of the game they could not lose, and somehow did not lose.
The Detroit Tigers, with their $132-million payroll, were two runs ahead and bringing in super closer Jose Valverde to wrap up the American League Division Series and also wrap up the A’s season. So the rest of us thought.
But not the way the A’s, the $55-million A’s, think.
“What it’s done,’’ said Bob Melvin, the magician of a manager about a multiplicity of comebacks, “is give us a sense that we’re never out of it until the last out.”
And Wednesday night, that last out never was recorded. Instead, the A’s got a single by Josh Reddick, a double by Josh Donaldson and a single by Smith to tie the game, 3-3, then almost as the sellout crowd of 36,385 sensed it was about to occur, a two-out game-winner by Coco Crisp that sent Smith home to beat the Tigers, 4-3.
So, the A’s, destiny’s darlings, after their 15th walkoff victory of a season that even viewed up close seems impossible, have come back from a two-to-none deficit to tie the series at two wins apiece and force a deciding fifth game Thursday night at O.co Coliseum.
It was Kirk Gibson in reverse, revenge for a long-ago disappointment, when Gibson came out of the Dodgers dugout in the opener of the 1988 World Series and hit a game-winning home run off the Athletics' then-relief ace, Dennis Eckersley.
Different circumstances this time, but a memory is effaced. And another created.
“I guess to say the Oakland magic,’’ Smith explained in a calmness belying the moment, “our mentality is just that. I don’t really know how to describe the magic word. But when you go out there and give it your all, more times than not, good results will happen.
“Yeah, at some point it’s got to be just good baseball. There’s no magic recipe or anything like that. We go out there, and we play carefree and get the job done.”
If in the most dramatic and unsuspecting of ways. The A’s basically couldn’t do anything against numerous Tigers pitchers other than strike out 11 times in eight innings. And Valverde was the guy who was going to finish it off. Except he couldn’t.
On Tuesday night, Crisp stole a home run from Prince Fielder, his glove two feet above the fence. On Wednesday night, he helped steal a game, lining a Valverde pitch to right as Smith raced home and everyone else on the A’s raced to swallow Smith in a circle of bodies. This walkoff celebration took place at first, not at home.
Moments later, there was Crisp with a face full of whipped cream, the obligatory reward for walkoff heroism, and after that a back and head full of Gatorade, the drink having been dumped on him.
“He hits closers,” said Melvin of Crisp, “and he hits good pitching. He always puts up a great at-bat. We don’t need a homer right there. All we need is a hit. I don’t think there’s anybody we feel better about.”
In the postgame interview room, Smith and Crisp sat side-by-side in front of two microphones, and when someone mentioned Melvin’s comment about relying on Crisp, Smith showed mock displeasure.
“I don’t know if I should be offended by that or not,” was Smith’s first response. Then he continued, “No, he comes through every time. Or it seems like it in the clutch.”
His face wiped clean but his undershirt still damp, Crisp, asked about his performance, fell back on the word now linked to the A’s of 2012, “Amazing.”
“Yeah,” Crisp said, “the guys in front of me obviously did a fantastic job of getting on base. Redd (Reddick, obtained from the Red Sox over the winter) came up huge.”
He had come to the plate 1-for-13 in the series, with eight strikeouts. “We try to keep his head in the game,” Crisp said. “He’s been battling the whole series. Balls haven’t been falling for him. J.D. (Donaldson) obviously got a bit hit. Smitty's huge hit gave me the opportunity to come up there and do something magical.”
Crisp did just that, but as he reminded, he wasn’t alone. He had hits from teammates, great pitching from teammates and, we must admit, a boost from fate.
“There’s a confidence,” Melvin insisted. “We’ve done it so many times.”
But only one time, this time, when they were three outs from the end of the season.