What the Athletics need to do to host a playoff game

The Oakland Athletics have been one of the biggest surprises of 2018.

With just 13 games to go, the team is on-pace to win 98 games...but still clinch the second Wild Card. That’s just the state of the American League (outside of the Central). However, as they are just 3.5 games out of the AL West and 1.5 games out of the first Wild Card, there is still a slight chance that the Athletics will host a playoff game.

Into Saturday, FanGraphs put the Athletics’ postseason odds at 99.6 percent. Okay, making the postseason shouldn’t be an issue. While FanGraphs doesn’t project first versus second Wild Card odds, Oakland is projected to finish 2.7 wins behind the Yankees, so the odds that they catch New York are probably pretty slim. To add insult to injury, they had just a 2.7 percent chance to win the division into the weekend, and that was before they fell another half-game back after FanGraphs’ last adjustment.

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