OAKLAND, Calif. -- Yandy Diaz slugged baseball's lowest spender into a matchup with mighty Houston as the Tampa Bay Rays beat Oakland at its own game 5-1 in the American League wild-card round Wednesday night.
After playing in only one game since late July, Diaz hit a leadoff homer and went deep again in the third inning. Avisail Garcia hit a two-run drive in the second, and Charlie Morton had all the support he needed as Tampa Bay advanced to face the AL West champion Astros in a best-of-five division series.
Game 1 is Friday at Houston, which racked up a major league-best 107 victories this season.
"We have a tough road ahead of us, Houston's a great team, but we played them well this year. It's going to be a dogfight," Tommy Pham said.
Pham homered in the fifth for the 96-win Rays, who had the smallest payroll in the majors at $66.4 million. And in a playoff meeting between creative, small-budget teams that make the most of limited resources, it was Tampa Bay that came out on top.
Tampa Bay players raced out of their dugout to celebrate when Marcus Semien struck out to end it, and then started putting on fresh playoff T-shirts and caps.
"It's a beautiful thing having the lowest payroll in baseball and having the success we did," center fielder Kevin Kiermaier said before the game. "It always feels good to stick it to the man any time you're able to in this game, and that's something to be very proud of."
The A's have lost nine consecutive winner-take-all games since 2000, going 1-15 with a chance to advance to the next postseason round. Their only win was in 2006 against the Twins before being swept in the AL Championship Series by the Tigers.
A year ago in the wild-card game, Oakland's first time back in the playoffs since 2014, the A's fell behind fast and lost 7-2 at Yankee Stadium. They won 97 games again to earn a wild card.
This game had a far different feel in the familiar, friendly confines of the Coliseum, but the A's dug themselves another quick hole.
A day earlier, Rays Manager Kevin Cash wasn't sure Diaz would play given how much time he missed with a foot injury during the second half of the season.
Diaz returned for the season's final game at Toronto after being sidelined since July 23. He played in just 79 games this season, 22 of those at first base with 17 starts.
"He probably caught us off guard a little bit with how quickly he turned around over the last five, six days," Cash said.
Cash started Diaz at first to make sure his best bat against lefties was in the lineup.
"I just was trying to get good pitches to hit and luckily they went out," Diaz said through a translator.
Pham was impressed.
"Kudos to him. He kept himself game-ready for as long as he's been down," Pham said. "We really need him. I've been saying it all year -- he's such a good bat, doesn't strike out much, knows the strike zone. Hits the ball hard."
Kiermaier noted Diaz is "just one of those guys, he just wakes up out of bed and rakes. Everyone knows him for his muscles and what he can do in the weight room and stuff like that, but the guy finds the barrel so much throughout this whole season, and any time we're able to have him available, we're happy."
Morton, with a career-high 16 wins and his best ERA yet of 3.05 this season, counted on his playoff experience giving him an edge. He won Game 7 of the World Series for the Astros in 2017.
Morton gave up five hits without an earned run over five innings. He struck out four and walked three in his seventh playoff start and eighth appearance, having spent the past two seasons with Houston.
The right-hander walked Mark Canha to load the bases with two outs in the first before retiring Jurickson Profar on a flyball.
Morton quickly settled in and once his turn was done, the Rays' shutdown bullpen did the rest.
Semien reached third on a three-base error by third baseman Mike Brosseau in the third and scored on Ramon Laureano's sacrifice fly. Oakland did little else.
Diaz hit the fifth pitch of the night from Sean Manaea over the wall in right-center. Manaea then struck out the side after Diaz's drive, but was done after two innings.
"That's kind of our game. They kind of beat us with our game. We're normally a home run-hitting team," Oakland Manager Bob Melvin said.
Manaea earned his first career playoff start over 15-game winner Mike Fiers, who pitched a no-hitter May 7 against the Reds to begin a 21-start unbeaten stretch in which he went 12-0.
Sports on 10/03/2019