OAKLAND, Calif. – When he got to second base, Yandy Diaz stole a glance back toward the dugout and saw all his teammates going crazy. He gleefully kept running.
Out for two months, no matter.
Diaz slugged the Tampa Bay Rays, baseball’s lowest spenders this season, into a playoff matchup with the mighty Houston Astros and Charlie Morton silenced the powerful Oakland Athletics on the mound to win the American League wild-card game 5-1 Wednesday night, essentially beating the home team at its own game.
After playing only one game since late July because of a foot injury, Diaz hit a leadoff homer and went deep again in the third inning.
“When I looked to the bench and saw the guys super excited, it pumped me up to go around the bases,” Diaz, who is from Cuba, said through a translator. “I thought we had to carry that momentum throughout the game.”