The opener is coming to October, courtesy of the A’s.
The phenomenon that started as a polarizing idea and eventually became more common around MLB this season will make its playoff debut Wednesday when the A’s take on the Yankees in the AL wild-card game in The Bronx.
Reliever Liam Hendriks will start the game for the A’s, and the order of arms coming after that is a plan only manager Bob Melvin knows, though he said it was still up for debate as of Tuesday afternoon.
“As far as after that, there are a lot of moving parts,” Melvin said before his team worked out at Yankee Stadium. “I can tell you we’ll have 11 pitchers, we’ll have 14 position players. How it’s going to go after Liam, we’re still kind of deciding who may be the last guy on the 11 pitchers. So I’ll probably withhold that at this point.”
It is believed the A’s will carry only one true starting pitcher on their 25-man roster — Edwin Jackson, per the San Francisco Chronicle — and he will be saved for an extra-inning scenario.
That means the nine pitchers besides Hendriks and Jackson will all be bullpen arms trying to shut down the Yankees and advance Oakland to the ALDS against the Red Sox.
Hendriks has been an opener eight times this season, but the A’s have a dominant bullpen behind him to unleash on the Yankees. They have MLB’s third-lowest bullpen ERA, 3.37, trailing only the Astros and Cubs.
Their biggest weapon in relief has been Blake Treinen, a hard-throwing closer who has 38 saves with a 0.78 ERA. He could be used in any situation Wednesday, with Melvin saying he was capable of throwing up to three innings in relief.
“He’s got a rubber arm,” said Melvin, who resorted to openers late in the season as his starting rotation was crushed by injuries. “In a game like this when the back end is going to be crucial and when you bring a guy in like that, we’re not afraid to use him for multiple innings, and that’s a serious benefit for us.”
The A’s relievers looked loose as ever on Tuesday, as many of them ran football routes in the outfield at the start of their workout. They are ready for the bullpenning to begin.
“I feel like in today’s game, I think there’s been a struggle between old-school mentality and sabermetrics, and this is a way to kind of incorporate sabermetrics with effectiveness,” Treinen said. “We have guys in the front office that do a lot of research to put us in the best situations for success, and I think it’s our job to put some faith in them. We’ve got the arms to make this make sense.”
