A’s vs. Yankees AL Wild Card Game highlights & updates

8 p.m. ET game will be televised by TBS.

In a normal year, two teams that won 100 and 97 games would not be forced to play a single-elimination game. But there isn’t much normal about the New York Yankees and Oakland Athletics, who meet in the American League Wild Card Game on Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium (8 p.m. ET, TBS, FuboTV).

Thanks to the Boston Red Sox winning 108 games, the highest total in baseball in 17 years, and the defending champion Houston Astros notching 103 victories, neither the 100-win Yankees nor 97-win A’s won their divisions. That makes Wednesday the most combined wins for two teams in a Wild Card Game, surpassing the 195 by the Pittsburgh Pirates (98) and Chicago Cubs (97) in the National League in 2015.

AL Wild Card Game info, TV & streaming

• Teams: Oakland A’s (97-65) vs. New York Yankees (100-62)
• Location: Yankee Stadium, New York
• Time: 8 p.m. ET
• TV: TBS
• Streaming: TBS.com, FuboTV

Two things these teams have in common are prodigious power and strong bullpens, with both expected to be on display on Wednesday night. The Yankees set a major league record with 267 home runs on the season, including a record 12 players in double digits. The A’s, who play in the cavernous Oakland Coliseum, led MLB with 136 home runs on the road, 13 more than New York.

Oakland also boasts the major league home run leader in Khris Davis, who hit 48 home runs and has averaged 44 home runs over the last three seasons.

The A’s (3.37) and Yankees (3.38) ranked third and fourth in the majors in bullpen ERA, while New York’s bullpen had the best relief strikeout rate (30.2%). With several injuries to their starting rotation the A’s have relied heavily on their relievers, who logged 641⅓ innings in 2018, second only to the opener-happy Tampa Bay Rays.

Oakland will use an opener on Wednesday night, with reliever Liam Hendriks starting on the mound in what will be the first of a cavalcade of powerful short stints from the A’s bullpen. Hendricks was the opener eight times in September for the A’s, totaling 8⅔ innings in those outings, the last seven of which were scoreless.

One of those relievers will be Blake Treinen, who posted a sublime 0.78 ERA in his 68 appearances, with 100 strikeouts and 21 walks in 80⅓ innings.

“This is a must-win situation for us, and we all know that, and I think we’re all just willing to do whatever it takes to win. You can’t say going a starter for seven innings is the best way. You can’t say that going an opener is the best way,” Treinen told reporters on Tuesday. “But this is what’s going to work for us, and we’re going to ride it out, and we have full faith in whoever makes the decisions. I’m excited to see what this game does because it’s kind of a first of its kind, and I think we all fully embrace that.”

Brian Anderson will call play-by-play for TBS, alongside analysts Ron Darling and Dennis Eckersley and reporter Lauren Shehadi. Online streaming is available through TBS.com.