MLB Rankings: Baseball’s Greatest Hits of Week-16

MLB Rankings: Greatest Hits in Week-16

4. Khris Davis, 60 percent

Hendriks may have gotten the critical double-play ball, but it wouldn’t have mattered had Khris Davis not delivered a scorcher in the inning’s top half.

The A’s trailed 4-3 entering the ninth of what had been a back-and-forth game, the kind you would expect between post-season contenders. Minnesota touched Jose Berrios for a pair of first-inning home runs, the A’s rallied to take a 3-2 lead on seventh-inning home runs by Mark Canha and Ramon Laureano, only to watch Minnesota regain the lead with two runs in the bottom of that same inning,

Blake Treinen avoided making the situation worse in the eighth when, after allowing a base hit and a walk, he retired Marwin Gonzalez on a ground out.

But that still left the A’s staring at their last three outs starting the ninth. The situation got worse before it got better, Twins reliever Taylor Rodgers getting Matt Chapman on a groundout and fanning Matt Olson.

Then Rodgers hit Mark Canha with a pitch, and Ramon Laureano followed with a double to left that sends Canha to third. Still trailing by a run with two out, Oakland’s chances only measured 21 percent.

But the statistics didn’t account for Davis. Against an A’s shift that left only first baseman C.J. Cron on the right side of the infield, Davis rifled a shot that handcuffed Cron and skipped past him onto the right-field grass. With second baseman Jonathan Schoop pulled well over toward the base, it was an easy matter for Canha and Laureano to both score, giving the A’s the 5-4 lead that Hendriks eventually protected.