A's seal the deal in West
Melhuse, Salmon
By Mark Saxon, STAFF WRITER (Oakland Tribune)

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OAKLAND -- Considering the Oakland A's had a chance to clinch a division championship Tuesday night, they had to be a little disappointed that just 23,211 of their fans showed up.
But why not give the loyal folks who did show up something they'll never forget?

As the evening wore on, the tension built to electric levels as both the A's game with the Texas Rangers and the Seattle Mariners game at Anaheim went back and forth, and both went into extra innings.

The A's finally took care of their part by winning 4-3 in the 10th inning on Adam Melhuse's single under Alex Rodriguez's glove. They celebrated wildly on the field for a minute, then shuffled over and stood by the dugout watching the end of the Anaheim-Seattle game on the big screen.

An entire stadium of fans joined with them, at times chanting "Let's go Angels!"

Tim Salmon must have heard them, because 20 minutes later he hit the shot -- an 11th-inning solo home run -- that handed the A's their third division title in four years. Anaheim beat Seattle 2-1 and chaos broke out in the A's clubhouse.

The champagne was chilled and the plastic sheets were in storage, just waiting to be draped all over the Oakland A's clubhouse to protect from the spray. Clubhouse attendants must have wrapped and unwrapped the preparations three or four times Tuesday.

Things had gone sour about an hour earlier. Just as bad things started happening in Northern California for the A's, good things were going on for Seattle down South.

In the ninth inning in Oakland, Rangers catcher Todd Greene hit Keith Foulke's first pitch over the left-field fence to give Texas a 3-2 lead. Meanwhile at Edison Field, the Mariners rallied to tie the game 1-all in the ninth.

Jermaine Dye later tied the A's game up with an RBI double off Francisco Cordero.

It was a bizarre night, especially considering A's manager Ken Macha had spent a lot of his pregame comments talking about Foulke as the team's MVP. For good reason: Foulke leads the American League in saves and had converted 90 percent of his chances this season.

"Where would we be without him this year?," Macha asked.

But if there has been one consistent failing -- by Foulke's own admission -- it has been a tendency to allow home runs. He gave up big shots earlier this season to Jason Giambi and Manny Ramirez. But Todd Greene?

Billy McMillon had nearly won it for the A's in the ninth. He crushed a belt-high fastball from Cordero deep the center field, but the chill conditions kept the ball in and Ryan Christenson tracked it down on the warning track. And Erubiel Durazo nearly won it in the 10th, but his line drive smacked off the right-field wall two feet from the top, resulting in a 330-foot single.

Rookie Rich Harden had looked forward to pitching against the Mariners in what he thought would be a clinching game Sunday. Two things happened to make that opportunity go away -- the A's lost two games to Seattle and Harden developed back spasms -- so he had to wait until Tuesday for another opportunity.

Harden iced his back each of the past three nights and looked perfectly healthy while pitching into the seventh inning. The 21-year old appears to be getting his wheels back on after some mid-season wobbliness back in August and earlier this month. He has taken the ball at least into the sixth inning in three straight starts.

Harden struck out Jermaine Clark on a 95 mph fastball and nearly got out of a two-on, one-out jam, but Michael Young bounced an RBI single up the middle to cut the A's lead to 2-1 in the fifth inning.

Harden got some bad luck in the seventh, when Clark swung weakly on a hit-and-run and pushed the ball down the left-field line for an RBI double. That tied the game at 2-all.

Cal product Ryan Drese, an Oakland native, had the A's hitters in knots. Eric Chavez flicked an RBI double to left-center in the first and Ramon Hernandez pushed an RBI single to right in the fourth. That was about it for the A's lineup until the final two innings.