NEW YORK (AP) — http://www.clevelandbrownsteamonline.com/greg-joseph-jersey , nothing was any different about this October for the Oakland Athletics.They didn’t last very long … again.Liam Hendriks gave up a two-run homer to Aaron Judge on his ninth pitch and the A’s never recovered, making another early playoff exit with a 7-2 loss to the New York Yankees in the American League wild-card game Wednesday night.Oakland’s dangerous bats were mostly silenced by Luis Severino and a nasty New York bullpen, sending the A’s right back across the country and home for the winter — an abrupt ending to their surprisingly successful 97-win season.“Unless you play the last game, it’s disappointing,” manager Bob Melvin said. “So I think when you reflect back and look where we started the year, kind of where we came from, it ends up being a good year. But it doesn’t feel good right now.”Meanwhile, the Yankees advanced to a best-of-five Division Series against rival Boston.It was the eighth consecutive defeat for the A’s in a winner-take-all postseason game since Reggie Jackson’s homer helped beat a New York Mets team that featured Tom Seaver and Willie Mays in Game 7 of the 1973 World Series.Despite making nine playoff appearances this century, Oakland has reached the AL Championship Series only once, in 2006. The club dropped to 1-14 during that stretch with a chance to move on, including a 9-8 loss in 12 innings to Kansas City in the 2014 AL wild-card game.“We’ve had a tough time with it,” Melvin said. “And it’s frustrating.”Three of those setbacks have come courtesy of the Yankees, including five-game Division Series losses in 2000 and 2001. New York also swept the A’s 3-0 in the 1981 ALCS.With his rotation heavily depleted by injuries, Melvin started Hendriks in a “bullpen game Authentic Greg Joseph Jersey ,” a strategic trend that’s quickly catching on around the majors after an innovative Tampa Bay organization employed it often this year with tangible success.Hendriks, a no-name reliever with starting experience, returned from the minors in September and was effective in eight games as an “opener.” He tossed seven shutout innings over the last seven, pitching one inning each time before handing the ball to someone else as the Athletics relied on a strong and deep bullpen.That was the idea Wednesday night, too, but intentionally throwing “Johnny Wholestaff,” as it used to be called, in a win-or-go-home playoff game was certainly an unprecedented experiment.“I think the first two batters obviously weren’t the way I drew it up. Didn’t quite get ahead, got into some bad counts and they made me pay,” Hendriks said. “After that, I kind of settled down a little bit. Got into a rhythm and was able to retire the next three, but unfortunately the first two came back to bite us.”The previous three times a pitcher with no wins in the regular season — never mind one who was cut from the 40-man roster in June — had started a postseason game, they had missed most of the season either because of injury or to serve in a war.Judge’s home run off Hendriks put the A’s in a quick hole at raucous Yankee Stadium. They opened the fifth with their first hits of the night, consecutive singles that chased Severino. But then Dellin Betances retired Matt Chapman and Jed Lowrie before striking out slugger Khris Davis Myles Garrett Jersey Elite , the 2-3-4 hitters in the lineup, to thwart the scoring threat.“It was a tough environment,” Davis said. “Their pitching just showed up tonight. They made good pitches when we had baserunners on and we’ve got to tip our cap.”New York added four in the sixth against Fernando Rodney and Blake Treinen, perhaps the best closer in baseball this season.Treinen allowed Luke Voit’s two-run triple and an eighth-inning homer to Giancarlo Stanton. The All-Star reliever was charged with three earned runs in two innings, the first time he yielded more than one in an outing all year.“I just didn’t do a good job of executing pitches,” Treinen said. “I had a hard time getting my slider down.”Davis, who led the majors with 48 homers, lined a two-run shot to right field in the eighth to trim the deficit to 6-2.But by then, it was way too late.“We couldn’t get that big knock,” catcher Jonathan Lucroy said.After finishing last in the AL West the previous three years, low-budget Oakland went 97-65 for a 22-win improvement and its best record since a 103-59 mark in 2002.Yet in the end, October was unkind once again.“They got us on the run early and had two innings where they put up quick numbers,” Melvin said.“We just didn’t do enough offensively tonight. You do have to give them credit. They pitched really well,” he added. “The first run is big. When you’re away and you get the crowd into it http://www.clevelandbrownsteamonline.com/myles-garrett-jersey , that’s more that you have to overcome.” ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — The Tampa Bay Rays, who won more games than any American League team that didn’t make the playoffs, have rewarded manager Kevin Cash with a contract extension that runs through 2024, plus a club option for 2025.The 40-year-old Cash had one year remaining on a five-year, $5 million deal he signed when he replaced Joe Maddon after the 2014 season.Financial terms were not disclosed. Both Cash, who had no previous managerial experience when he was hired, and management said it was an easy decision to continue their relationship after a bounce-back season.“Kevin has a long list of positives. … It’s been a joy to see him blossom,” general manager Erik Neander said Tuesday. “He’s very deserving of this extension. We’re excited for the years ahead.”The budget-minded Rays surprisingly won 90 games, finishing third in the AL East behind the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees, despite trimming payroll last winter and purging the roster again in July to transform themselves into a young team with a promising future.Cash, who turns 41 in December, has led the Rays to a 318-330 record over four seasons.“There’s reason to be really excited about the way our team played, the youth and the athleticism Authentic Myles Garrett Jersey , and the way these guys really came together in the second half of the year,” Cash said.“I’d like to think, other than the teams that are playing playoff baseball right now, we might have been the most talked about team in a positive light at the end of the season,” the manager added during a conference call. “It’s an honor to be a part of that.”The Rays lost 12 of 15 to begin the season, digging themselves into a hole few people thought they were capable of escaping after trading Evan Longoria, Steven Souza Jr., Corey Dickerson and Jake Odorizzi and losing starting pitcher Alex Cobb to free agency.The club chopped more salary in July, trading pitchers Chris Archer, Nathan Eovaldi and Alex Colome, as well as catcher Wilson Ramos and outfielder Denard Span to make way for younger players.With first-time All-Star Blake Snell leading the majors with 21 wins and an AL-best 1.89 ERA and Cash overseeing an innovative plan to use “openers” and “bullpen days” to compensate for a shortage of proven starting pitching, the Rays went 41-25 after the All-Star break, including 19-9 in September.“This is a year we put a lot on his plate,” Neander said. “We made a lot of moves all the way into spring training that left a lot of doubt Jarvis Landry Jersey Elite , potentially within our clubhouse with respect to what we could accomplish this year.“To see him navigate that, to see him navigate the difficult stretch we had out of the gates, the maturity, his approach, the unwavering support he had from our coaching staff … was really impactful” and makes Cash the right man for the job “not only today, but for the forseeable future,” the GM added.Cash doesn’t anticipate the extension creating additional pressure because expectations have remained consistent for an organization that made the playoffs four times in six seasons from 2008 to 2013.“The expectation is to go out there and find ways to win,” Cash said, “and we get to do it with a really energetic group of players.”