Yankees: Oakland Athletics nightmare Wild Card scenario

Not only are the Oakland Athletics on pace to win the second Wild Card, right now they’re turning into the perfect foil for the Yankees. Take the storyline of Dustin Fowler as a precursor, for instance.

Dustin Fowler went from being the future Yankees center field to the Baseball Gods poising this young man with such a perfect story of revenge; the Lannisters would admire it.

In 2017 the Yanks traded Fowler alongside fellow prospects James Kapreilian and Jorge Mateo to the A’s for Sonny Gray. They didn’t just trade him under normal circumstances either. They did it to Fowler a few months after his knee exploded during the first inning of his major league debut.

In case you don’t know Fowler’s story here’s a recap. In a game against the White Sox, Fowler put his body on the line by chasing after a ball well down the first field foul line. With his focus solely on the ball, he miscalculated where the wall was. He flew into a metal electrical box connected to the bottom part of the right-field stands at full speed — and in the battle of meat flesh vs. just about everything else — everything else usually wins.

Fowler suffered a ruptured patellar tendon and his season came to an abrupt end. Still in crutches during the 2017 trade deadline, Fowler found out at 2:30 P.M. on July 31 that he’d been traded off to Oakland. There he was trying to piece his life back together with this horrible injury, and now he was going to have to do it in a new place, on the opposite end of the continental USA.

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“It was a fun ride,” Fowler said of his time with the Yankees after being traded last year. “Things happen for a reason. There’s a reason for me to go to Oakland right now. So I’ve got to do everything I can to help them out.”

My rational mind says this is a throwaway line. The cynic in me can’t help but feel like the “reason” Fowler was traded away was to completely murder the Yankees in the Wild Card game this year. It’s as if the Baseball Gods would like the Yankees to pay penance on behalf of their General Manager Brian Cashman.

Here’s my prediction on how this nightmare Wild Card scenario may turn out.

Editor’s Note: The following is completely hypothetical.

Right now, Fowler is down in the minors after struggling a bit on the 25-man roster this season: .231/.260/.368 with three home runs, 21 RBI and a 43:7 K:BB ratio in 182 at-bats. All that will change in September.

Someone will get hurt after the waiver deadline, and the A’s will be forced to go with Fowler since they won’t have any other options. He’ll do okay, but his best game will surely be in that one-game Wild Card.

In the fifth inning of game 163, Masahiro Tanaka or Luis Severino will be cruising. The Yankees will probably have a 3-0 lead. A walk with two outs will look like nothing – especially since it’s the bottom of the order. Fowler will come up for his second at-bat and get another standing ovation.

The ovations he gets are easy to give since he’ll still be hitting around .230 at the time.

Sevy or Tanaka will take Fowler lightly as they get ready to exit the inning and Fowler will make decent contact with the ball. Everyone thinks Judge is going to get it and with an 80-mph exit velocity, the ball falls out of Judge’s grasp and into the short porch of right field for a home run. It’s 3-2 Yankees. Fowler tightens the game.

Then in the seventh inning, Fowler comes up again, this time against left-handed reliever Zach Britton. It looks like Britton will be cruising after he gets the previous two hitters out. The cruise comes to a crashing halt once Fowler steps to the plate.

With sparse ovations, Britton does what he recently does best and leaves a sinker high in the strike zone. Fowler, a young kid, once touted as the future, has another dink of a hit that sits at another 80-mph exit velocity. This time it just grazes the foul pole, and the game is tied. Somewhere out on Twitter Jared Carrabis is cackling.

In the final two frames, the former Met Jeurys Familia – because who else would it be – shuts down the Yankees. Chapman comes in during the 10th inning and strikes out the first two batters. It looks like he’s dealing. Deals don’t matter in this game though. All of a sudden, against Fowler, he loses command. The only pitch he counts on is his slider. He throws two of those for strikes.

Fowler, despite being a rookie, knows another slider is coming. On top of that, it’s a hanger. He makes contact with it and this time Fowler rockets the ball to the second deck high above the short porch. Judge isn’t getting near that one.

After that, Chapman – the man whose kryptonite is the big game – gives up two more runs. The Yankees sort of mount a comeback in the bottom of the inning but Neil Walker hits into a double play.

The worst part about this game won’t even be the fact that Fowler ate the Yankees up. Mike Fiers, the latest acquisition by the A’s, will probably throw a gem. This is a guy who nearly ended Giancarlo Stanton’s career and enjoys liking tweets about breaking his face.

You don’t want to see him do well, yet I’m sure he will. Since the Baseball Gods already planned that this season wouldn’t end kindly for the Yanks, Fiers is going to throw the game of his life. For sure it’ll be seven strong innings, and after those early three runs, he’ll retire everyone. He’ll like tweets about striking out Stanton to troll us all.

To lose to Mike Fiers, a guy who tattoos “Mike Fiers” on his forearm, will sting until opening day next year when the Yankees steal the gimmick that the Golden State Warriors took from them — and acquire the entire league.

Of course, the Yanks could just win the one-game Wild Card scenario I presented for you. They could even do so in grand fashion and eat Fiers up. However, the cynic in me refuses to see that scenario until it actually happens.