As the American League playoff race winds down at the end of the 2014 regular season, there is a prevailing narrative emerging when it comes to the decline of the Oakland Athletics.
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Said narrative is set to attribute Oakland’s struggles on offense to the departure of slugger Yoenis Cespedes in a trade to the Boston Red Sox. Never mind that the trade in question netted Oakland ace Jon Lester or that Cespedes has a .756 OPS with Boston in 31 games. There have been enough good moments from Cespedes to go along with enough struggles from Oakland’s lineup to give the impression that losing the slugger will cost the A’s the division title in 2014.
That is not to say that losing Cespedes did not make a difference, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The whole idea with Oakland the past couple seasons, for better or for worse, has been that they ride the overall depth and quality of their roster. To all of a sudden give one guy so much credit does not seem like a useful approach.
It certainly won’t help matters in that regard if Cespedes keeps thrilling the Red Sox faithful with a clutch hit there and a mighty swing there. That is exactly what happened on Friday night as the outfielder blasted a dramatic, authoritative single to center field to give Boston a walk-off win in the bottom of the 10th inning against the Toronto Blue Jays.
Check out video of the walk-off hit delivered by Cespedes below:
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