Elephant Rumblings: Tampa Bay Rays one win away from sweeping 2020 ALCS

Good morning, Athletics Nation!

The 2020 MLB postseason is inching toward its finale, with the semifinal LCS round well underway. There’s not much baseball news today otherwise, which is fine since lately every development seems to be a bummer. Here’s another way to put it: No famous superstar players from your youth died yesterday, no more franchise cornerstones are being rumored to leave the A’s, and no fresh scandals arose. At this moment, no news is good news.

It will be another couple weeks before the offseason gets started, which is fine because there will be plenty to talk about on Athletics Nation until then. With 10 free agents coming off the books, there are decisions to make about who to keep, who to let go, and who might be out there to add to the 2021 A’s roster. For now, here’s an update on the playoff games still going on.

MLB Postseason update

Both LCS series continue to be one-sided. In the ALCS, the Tampa Bay Rays are now one win away from sweeping the Houston Astros, after taking their third straight game on Tuesday. Once again the Rays took advantage of mistakes by Houston in the 5-2 victory, like a costly throwing error and a run-scoring HBP. Recap from DRaysBay.

In the NLCS, the Atlanta Braves have won the first two games against the favored Los Angeles Dodgers. In the latest, the Braves took a 7-0 lead but nearly blew it, including four runs in the 9th by the Dodgers, but Atlanta held on 8-7. Recap from Talking Chop.

Wednesday LCS schedule (all times PT):

• NLCS G3: Dodgers at Braves, 3:05 p.m. on Fox Sports 1
• ALCS G4: Rays at Astros, 5:40 p.m. on TBS

When the sun sets tonight, the Astros might be done.

A’s Coverage

• Slusser podcast: Guest is scorer David Feldman
• Kleinschmidt: A’s GM Forst says plan still is for Puk to be a starter
• AN: A’s packed a ton of memories into two-plus months in 2020

MLB News & Interest

• Bowman and Gurnick: Dodgers-Braves NLCS Gm. 3 FAQ (FS1, 6 ET)
• Cassavell, McTaggart, and Toribio: Rays-Astros ALCS Gm. 4 FAQ (TBS, 8:30 ET)
• Langs: 8 noteworthy stats, facts from ALCS Game 3
• Sarris: How long can The Randy Arozarena Experience go on like this? ($$$)
• Clair: Melancon catches Albies’ homer ... AGAIN
• Byrne: Trevor Bauer: A Top Free Agent Like We’ve Never Seen Before
• Dierkes: The Looming Arbitration Battle
• Today in Baseball History

Best of Twitter

The frustrating thing is that is exactly the paragraph we were hoping to be writing about the A’s this month

Obviously homers played a big role, but this will always be a what-if for A’s fans

Meanwhile, perhaps we didn’t quite break the A’s unlucky streak in the postseason

I mean come on where are the five homers every day?

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