Wild Card standings: A’s gain a game with weekend sweep

The Oakland A’s are still hanging on in the 2021 postseason race, and in fact their slim odds went up slightly over the weekend.

The A’s swept the Los Angeles Angels and have now won five games in a row. That surge finally gained them a little bit of ground, even while the other contenders were all playing doormat opponents the last few days, so now Oakland is only two games out of a playoff spot. The sweep in Anaheim wasn’t pretty, and it even included another blown save, but they got the job done each day and gutted out some clutch victories when they needed them most.

• Game #147: A’s win a one-run game!
• Game #148: Kaprielian stays sharp, A’s win fourth straight
• Game #149: A’s outduel Ohtani, blow save, win in extras

There are five teams competing for two AL Wild Card spots. Since our last look Friday morning, there’s been some movement in the standings entering Monday.

The A’s gained a game! They’re now only two games out of the Second Wild Card, with 13 to go on their schedule.

The Red Sox are also on a five-game winning streak, and they’ve taken sole possession of the top spot ahead of the Blue Jays, who only won two-of-three in their latest series. The Yankees had a rough weekend, losing two blowouts to Cleveland, and they’ve fallen into a tie with Oakland in the loss column. The Mariners only lost once but didn’t gain any ground.

Next up for the A’s is an AL West showdown, as they host Seattle for four games at the Coliseum. On one hand it’s a tough matchup against a fellow Wild Card candidate, especially since the Mariners have won 8-of-12 meetings so far this year. On the other hand, it’s a chance to effectively knock out one of the other contenders and turn this into a four-team race.

Meanwhile, the Blue Jays have a daunting task playing their own division leader in Tampa Bay, with the Rays looking to maintain the best record in the AL. The Red Sox and Yankees play weaker teams, but the Mets are only a few games under .500 and the last-place Rangers are holding their own in September, as the A’s already saw for themselves.

• BOS vs. NYM
• TOR @ TBR
• NYY vs. TEX
• SEA @ OAK

Oakland’s recent surge is keeping their thin postseason odds afloat. They actually ticked up slightly after entering last weekend in the 5% range, between gaining a game on the leader, and also more or less catching up with the third team that was ahead of them. In the AL West division they gained on the Astros, and are now six games out with six head-to-heads remaining between them.

• FanGraphs: 9.2% (split 7.9% Wild Card, 1.3% division)
• FiveThirtyEight: 11% (split 9% Wild Card, 2% division)
• Baseball-Reference: 13% (split 11.1% Wild Card, 1.9% division)

Boston and Toronto are in the 70-90% range for the Wild Card, while the Yankees have slipped to around 16-28% depending who you ask.

It’s still a long shot, but the A’s aren’t out of it yet.