HOUSTON — The baseball schedule resumes in full on Friday, and the National League is a jumble, 10 teams within five games of a playoff spot. Yet the American League seems to offer just one hope for a pennant race: the plucky and powerful Oakland Athletics, the contender no one saw coming.
“That’s kind of how the A’s have always done it,” said the veteran starter Brett Anderson, who pitched in the playoffs for Oakland, several teams and surgeries ago. “We’ve always kind of had that underdog role. It’s fun to be the spoiler and show people that we’re actually good and can compete with the best teams in baseball.