Why A's didn't watch Astros-D-backs to see if they clinch West

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With a Houston Astros loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Saturday night, the A’s would have been crowned AL West champions for the first time since 2013. 

The A’s did their part by defeating the Giants 6-0 at the Oakland Coliseum on Saturday. So they waited. But they had no desire to watch the game in question.

The A's will have to wait at least one more day to celebrate as the Astros scored two runs in the sixth inning and beat the D-backs 3-2 in Houston.

After they beat the Giants but before the Astros won, the A's made it clear they weren't going to celebrate if Houston had lost.

“I’m sure I’ll check the score just to know what happens, but we want to come in tomorrow and get the win and kind of celebrate that, it’s always better when you win as opposed to someone else losing,” A’s infielder Matt Olson said following the game. “We’re going to continue to take care of our business regardless. These games do still matter and we want to have some momentum going into the playoffs.”

“I think we’ll definitely be watching the score on the MLB app probably,” A’s starter Jesús Luzardo said on Saturday. “I don’t know if I’m going to watch the game live, but I’ll definitely keep an eye on the score.”

The fact that an Astros loss could seal the division crown for the A's makes it more interesting of a scenario. During the offseason, MLB uncovered that Houston cheated while making their 2017 World Series run. Mike Fiers, who now is with the A’s was the whistleblower in the revelation of the scandal.

The A’s aren’t thinking about that, however. They haven’t really throughout the season, Fiers included. They had one goal: To win it all.

Will they be able to celebrate should the Astros lose? Not necessarily. Not during these times, but Luzardo has a plan just in case.

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“With COVID, I’ll probably celebrate by playing video games in my apartment, but I think tomorrow, like Oly said it’ll be better to just go out and win tomorrow and not count on other people’s losses.”

“However we get it -- if we clinch that AL West, that’s part of our goal for this year when we started and we have more goals that we need to get to,” Luzardo added.

Once again on Sunday, the A's could be crowned division champs with an Astros loss. Houston and Arizona's game begins at 11:10 a.m. PT, while the finale of the Battle of the Bay series starts at 1 p.m. PT.

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