The Oakland A’s desperately needed a victory on Wednesday. Quite simply, without a win, there was no tomorrow. With that dire situation in mind, and with the game tied at 7-7 in the bottom of the seventh, manager Bob Melvin turned to the one bullet he felt he could trust.
In came Liam Hendriks. The game was his from that point on, as the A’s would live or die with what was left in his right arm. A pair of sacrifice flies in the eighth inning put Oakland on top, and Hendriks slammed the door shut the rest of the way.