| League: | al |
| Year: | 2018 |
| Visitor: | Oakland Athletics |
| Top1: | 0 |
| Top2: | 0 |
| Top3: | 0 |
| Top4: | 0 |
| Top5: | 0 |
| Top6: | 0 |
| Top7: | 0 |
| Top8: | 2 |
| Top9: | 0 |
| Visitor R: | 2 |
| Visitor H: | 4 |
| Visitor E: | 0 |
| Manager Visitor: | Bob Melvin |
| Home: | New York Yankees |
| Bot1: | 2 |
| Bot2: | 0 |
| Bot3: | 0 |
| Bot4: | 0 |
| Bot5: | 0 |
| Bot6: | 4 |
| Bot7: | 0 |
| Bot8: | 1 |
| Bot9: | x |
| Home R: | 7 |
| Home H: | 7 |
| Home E: | 1 |
| Manager Home: | Aaron Boone |
| Date: | October 3, 2018 |
| Venue: | Yankee Stadium |
| City: | The Bronx, New York |
| Attendance: | 49,620 |
| Television: | TBS |
| Tv Announcers: | Brian Anderson, Ron Darling, Dennis Eckersley, and Lauren Shehadi |
| Radio: | ESPN |
| Radio Announcers: | Jon Sciambi and Eduardo Pérez |
The 2018 American League Wild Card Game was a play-in game during Major League Baseball's (MLB) 2018 postseason contested between the American League's (AL) two wild card teams, the New York Yankees and the Oakland Athletics.[1] The game took place at Yankee Stadium on October 3, starting at 8:08 pm EDT.[2] The Yankees won, 7–2, and advanced to face the Boston Red Sox in the American League Division Series.[3]
This game started a part of the postseason where TBS broadcast postseason games because of the Fox's contract holdout with Optimum. Said holdout would continue until the 2018 World Series.
See main article: 2018 New York Yankees season and 2018 Oakland Athletics season.
New York entered the game with a 100–62 record, while Oakland was 97–65. They met six times during the regular season, with each team winning three times.[4]
This was New York's seventh playoff appearance as a wild card team. Since MLB's addition of a second wild card team in 2012, the Yankees had previously appeared in two Wild Card Games, a loss in 2015 and a win in 2017. The Yankees' appearance represented the first time a 100-win team played in a Wild Card Game. The most recent time that a 100-win team had not won their division was the 2001 Athletics.[5]
This was Oakland's third playoff appearance as a wild card team. They had previously appeared in one Wild Card Game, a loss in 2014.
This was the fourth time the Yankees and A's met in postseason play—the Yankees had won the three prior meetings: the 1981 ALCS (3–0), 2000 ALDS (3–2), and 2001 ALDS (3–2).[6]
Luis Severino was the starting pitcher for the Yankees, while the Athletics used Liam Hendriks as an opener.[7] The Yankees scored two runs in the first inning, as Aaron Judge hit a two-run homer off of Hendriks. The Yankees added four runs in the sixth, on back-to-back doubles by Judge and Aaron Hicks, followed by a walk to Giancarlo Stanton and a triple by Luke Voit. In the eighth inning, Khris Davis hit a two-run home run for Oakland and Stanton hit a home run for New York.