Division Series playoff preview: Where the hell are we?

Why the A’s will win: With the no off-days in the series, that swings a pretty big advantage toward the A’s. They have the deeper bullpen, as the Houston pen is filled with neophytes and drifters looking for hash browns in a roadside cafe. In a normal playoff series with multiple off-days, the Astros would probably try and bounce around Lance McCullers Jr. from the rotation to the pen and back. They can’t do that now.

This one has intrigue from Ramon Laureano trying to fight the whole Astros dugout earlier this year, living out the fantasy of most baseball fans and players. The Astros get to return to the scene of their greatest crime, Dodger Stadium, where they took Game 7 of the 2017 World Series after having a fire breather in center field of Minute Maid Park signal what pitch was coming.

The A’s lineup was utterly helpless against Lucas Giolito, but came to life when the White Sox had to go into the bargain bin after that. Zack Greinke can be that good on his day, but after that the Astros struggle and they might only get to throw him out there once. It’s not the same lineup without Matt Chapman, but it just outlasted one of the scarier lineups around in the wildcard round.

While they might not be the Legion of Doom or anything, manager Bob Melvin has at least six relievers he can go to without having to breathe into a paper bag on his way to the mound. He can’t unload them in the fourth inning every game like he might be tempted to under normal playoff circumstances, so they’ll have to get at least innings from Jesus Luzardo, Chris Bassitt, Sean Manaea, and Mike Fiers, which they definitely didn’t from Luzardo and Fiers last round. But that doesn’t really make them any different than the Astros.

Why the Astros will win: Because this is this year that the shitbirds win and gleefully so. The Astros weren’t spectacular against the Twins or anything, as they only scored seven runs. Still, these are all names you know, and even though you’re suspicious of anything that came before you can’t be totally confident that one or two of these falsely-aggrieved assholes will pop off for four games. Baseball in 2020 could be neatly summed up by Alex Bregman’s frat-boy fuckstick face arrogantly and flippantly dismissing anything the Astros have done before as he goes 10-for-15 in this series and celebrates another win. The whole year anywhere can be summed up by that.

Someone will have to, because the pitching edge here is still on the A’s side, but the chance for offensive explosion lies with the ‘Stros. They’ll have to bash their way through it, and they haven’t really done it all season. But it still feels like it’s bubbling beneath the surface, because fuck you, that’s why.