Due to the animosity felt by baseball fans to the Houston Astros, the Oakland A’s have a lot of support in the American League Division Series.
The Oakland A’s bandwagon is beyond the point of overcrowding.
Starting Monday, the A’s find themselves facing off against Public Enemy Number One, at least in the baseball world. They will begin a five game series with the Houston Astros, the winner moving on to the ALCS.
No one wanted to see the Astros even get this far. They were a part of the postseason strictly due to the expanded playoffs; their 29-31 record the worst of any AL participant. However, they were able to dispatch the snake-bitten Twins, setting up a battle with their divisional opponent.
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And now, they face their division rivals. The A’s had success against the Astros in 2020, taking seven of the ten games while outscoring Houston 38-25. Out of those 25 runs, 15 came in the A’s three losses, showing how important their pitching will be in the series.
There is also plenty of bad blood between the two sides. Mike Fiers had blown the lid off of AstroGate, leading to the vitriol directed towards the Astros by baseball fans. The two teams had their own benches clearing incident in August when Ramon Laureano and Alex Cintron exchanged pleasantries.
And yet, despite their admitted cheating, the Astros seem to feel that they are the aggrieved party. That the disgust and hatred from other fans towards the franchise is not deserved. The players have not admitted fault nor displayed remorse for their actions in the cheating scandal.
It is no wonder that fans of other teams want to watch the Astros get their comeuppance. The Twins were unable to do that in the first round; their inability to win in the postseason getting in the way. It is now on the Oakland A’s to make that happen, as a vast majority of baseball fans will be cheering them on in the five game series.
The Oakland A’s bandwagon is getting larger by the day. Maybe this will be the series that the Houston Astros get taken down.