Game 3 Boxscore breakdown - Richards and the bottom of the lineup put the A’s to bed early

I wasn’t planning on doing one of these for last night’s game since it was not nearly as dramatic - but here we go!

While vastly different from the breakdown on game 2, last night’s win probability breakdown is pretty fun in a different way. Let’s take a look.

Source: Fangraphs

That’s some pretty bleak odds if you are a fan of green and yellow jerseys. Garrett Richards was dealing early and the bottom of the lineup came through. By the time Danny Espinosa singled in Cameron Maybin in the second inning, the A’s had a measly 20.6% chance of winning this game.

Then when Richards took the mound in his cramp-shortened 5th inning, the A’s were already down to single digit odds.

What’s even better is that the game was pretty much put to be early offensively by the bottom of the lineup in that second inning. Cron, Maybin, Simmons, Espinosa, and Maldanado all got on base, with Cron, Maybin, and Simmons scoring runs. Not bad for guys not named Escobar, Calhoun, Trout or Pujols. If this bottom of the lineup can click like that most days, opposing teams are going to have trouble.

The bullpen was icing on the cake and preserved the shutout that Richards had started when he put this game to bed early enough for the couple dozen fans to get home and mope about their team for a couple hours before hitting the hay.