NEW YORK (AP) — Luis Severino gets a wild-card do-over.
After getting just one out for the New York Yankees against Minnesota last year, Severino starts this year’s winner-take-all matchup against the Oakland Athletics on Wednesday night .
“I just want to win,” Severino said Tuesday. “If I can go four good innings and then the bullpen comes, that would be great.”
Severino was chosen over J.A. Happ and Masahiro Tanaka despite a second-half slump. Rookie manager Aaron Boone said he made the decision after a staff meeting Saturday, slept on it and finalized it the next day .
“I think he’s equipped in so many ways to handle this, and perhaps most importantly, he’s equipped with amazing stuff and the ability to dominate big league hitters because he’s such a talented pitcher,” Boone said.
Severino left last year’s wild-card game trailing 3-0 after allowing four hits and a walk. Chad Green, David Robertson, Tommy Kahnle and Aroldis Chapman combined for five-hit relief as New York rallied for an 8-4 victory.
“I was too excited,” Severino said. “It was a good experience. Now I’ll take that tomorrow and try to treat that game like a regular game.”
A 24-year-old right-hander, Severino was 19-8 with a 3.39 ERA and 220 strikeouts. He was 14-2 with a 2.31 ERA at the All-Star break but lost six of his next nine decisions before beating Boston and Tampa Bay in his last two outings.
He lost 8-2 at Oakland on Sept. 5, allowing six runs — five earned — and six hits in 2 2/3 innings. He threw two wild pitches and Gary Sanchez had two of his major league-high 18 passed balls .
“I think it was a miscommunication between us,” Severino said. “I think we didn’t set the right signs.”
The wild-card winner advances to a Division Series against Boston starting Friday. Boone is including Happ, Tanaka and Lance Lynn as part of a nine-man bullpen Wednesday.
Severino rebounded last year to beat Cleveland in Game 4 of the Division Series, getting a 5-0 lead and allowing three runs and four hits in seven innings. He lasted four innings in Game 2 of the Championship Series against Houston, a game the Yankees lost 2-1, then gave up three runs over 4 2/3 innings in the 7-1 loss in Game 6.
Locating his 98 mph fastball is key.
“He’s dealt with massive success. He’s dealt with struggles. He’s dealt with going to the bullpen. He’s dealt with things this year as far as having the kind of first half he did and then going through a few-week stretch there where he struggled on the mound,” Boone said. “So I think he’s equipped in so many ways to handle this, and perhaps most importantly, he’s equipped with amazing stuff and the ability to dominate big league hitters.”
New York went 100-62, its best record since winning the 2009 World Series, and became the 10th big league team that won 100 games and failed to finish first. The Yankees set big league records with 267 homers and 12 players with double-digit home runs, becoming the first team to get 20 or more homers from all nine slots in the batting order.
In his first season after New York acquired him from Miami, Giancarlo Stanton led the offense with 38 homers and 100 RBIs. This will be the first postseason game of his nine-year big league career .
“It’s a quick turnaround from ‘how did your season go’ to now,” he said. “That season is over. That’s already in the past, even though it’s a couple days ago.”

EYEBALLS
Yankees games on their YES Network averaged a 3.60 rating this season, up slightly from 3.57 last year and the highest since 2012, but viewers dropped from 334,000 to 326,000.

CHICAGO (AP) — Tony Wolters waited and waited as the NL wild-card game went deep into Tuesday night. He stretched a couple of times and tried to figure out when he might get a chance to play.
When that opportunity arrived, he was ready.
Wolters hit a tiebreaking single with two outs in the 13th inning and the Colorado Rockies outlasted the Chicago Cubs 2-1 at Wrigley Field in the longest win-or-go-home postseason game in major league history.
“Probably the biggest hit I’ve ever had, that’s for sure,” he said.
The 26-year-old Wolters, claimed off waivers from Cleveland in 2016, entered as part of a double switch in the bottom of the 12th. The reserve catcher came up with runners at the corners and drove in Trevor Story with a two-strike hit back up the middle off losing pitcher Kyle Hendricks, quieting the crowd of 40,151 on a crisp fall night.
After playing its third big game over three days in three different cities, Colorado now heads to Milwaukee to open a best-of-five Division Series against the NL Central champion Brewers on Thursday.
“We didn’t make it easy on ourselves, that’s for sure,” Story said, “but we’re going to enjoy this one tonight and we’re definitely not done.”
Scott Oberg, the sixth Colorado pitcher, fanned Kris Bryant for the final out of the 12th and then struck out the side in the 13th to end the longest postseason game at 104-year-old Wrigley. Terrance Gore tried to sell that he was hit by a pitch, but was sent back to the plate after a replay review confirmed the initial call.
After Albert Almora Jr. struck out swinging for the final out, Wolters ran out and grabbed Oberg. They were soon joined by the rest of the excited Rockies in a rollicking purple mob near the mound.
“You’re always wondering, ‘How’s this going to end?’ But our guys fought all night and to be able to get that last out there was great,” Oberg said.
Wolters got his first hit since Sept. 10 in his playoff debut, and it was just the second postseason game for Oberg. Previously, the longest winner-take-all games in the postseason were 12-inning affairs in the 2014 AL wild-card round and Game 7 of the 1924 World Series.
This one lasted 4 hours, 55 minutes, and had pretty much everything, too. Hendricks was the third starting pitcher used by the Cubs, after Jon Lester worked six solid innings and Cole Hamels was pressed into action after the teams were tied at 1 through nine. Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado exchanged a memorable hug with Javier Baez after he tagged the excitable Cubs star in the 11th.
Colorado moved on to the Division Series for the first time since 2009. The Rockies lost to Arizona in the NL wild-card game a year ago.
“Such a crazy game,” Story said.
The Cubs made it to the NLCS in each of the previous three seasons, winning the 2016 World Series to break a 108-year drought, but they were plagued by an inconsistent offense all season long. Chicago finished with six hits and left 10 runners on base after managing only three hits in Monday’s 3-1 home loss to the Brewers in the NL Central tiebreaker.
“We played that game a lot,” said manager Joe Maddon, who matched a postseason record by using 23 players. “Believe me, it was on my mind for a large part of it.”
This time, it was Kyle Freeland cruising through Maddon’s lineup.
Starting on three days’ rest for the first time in the pros, Freeland struck out six in 6 2/3 scoreless innings. The Denver native looked quite comfortable in his first career playoff appearance, helping his hometown team bounce back from Monday’s NL West tiebreaker loss to the Dodgers in Los Angeles.
“Sometimes you just get beat and we got beat tonight,” Lester said.
Lester helped Chicago stick around by matching a career playoff high with nine strikeouts in his 26th postseason appearance. But he took a little while to settle into the game, and the Rockies took advantage.
Charlie Blackmon led off with a five-pitch walk. DJ LeMahieu followed with a ground-rule double on a 3-2 pitch — with the ball getting stuck in the famed ivy in left-center — and Arenado’s sacrifice fly drove in Blackmon.
Lester then limited the damage by striking out Story and Matt Holliday with LeMahieu on third.
That one run looked as if it might hold up as Freeland cruised into the seventh. After Story robbed Daniel Murphy of a hit with a diving grab at shortstop, manager Bud Black replaced Freeland with Adam Ottavino.
Chicago loaded the bases with two outs, getting some help when Drew Butera was called for catcher’s interference, but Ottavino struck out pinch-hitter Jason Heyward to end the inning.
The Cubs got another chance when Anthony Rizzo singled with two outs in the eighth, and Maddon went for it. He ran for his star first baseman with the speedy Gore, who promptly swiped second.
Ottavino had an 0-2 count on Baez when his third pitch got too much of the plate. The free-swinging slugger drove it into the gap in left-center for a tying double, easily scoring Gore from second and sending a charge through the crowd.
Hitters had been 0 for 36 against Ottavino with an 0-2 count this year.
“I think this is a classic,” Black said. “I think this will go down as a Major League Baseball classic. … And it’s awesome that a number of these fellas will always remember this game.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Fittingly, Liam Hendriks wore his cap backward. A reliever is going to start a team’s postseason opener.
A pitcher with no wins in the regular season.
A pitcher cut from the 40-man roster in June who spent two months toiling in the minor leagues.
A pitcher from Down Under who was happy to get medieval in New York.
“Instead of the starter going six and handing it over to the bullpen or going five and handing it over to the bullpen, now we’re just reversing it,” Oakland’s Australian right-hander said Tuesday, a day ahead of the Athletics’ AL wild card game against the New York Yankees.
New York’s Aaron Boone made a more conventional choice for his postseason game as a manager, picking Luis Severino over J.A. Happ and Masahiro Tanaka. Severino created a bullpen night in last year’s wild card game but not by design, lasting just one out and leaving with a three-run deficit against Minnesota in a game the Yankees rallied to win 8-4.
Oakland manager Bob Melvin has been scrambling because of injuries to starting pitchers Jharel Cotton, Kendall Graveman, Sean Manaea, Paul Blackburn, Andrew Triggs and Daniel Gossett . Yet, the A’s finished second in the AL West at 97-65, their best record in 16 years, and their relievers went 45-16, the second-most bullpen wins in big league history behind Tampa Bay’s 54 this year.
“There’s been a struggle between old-school mentality and sabermetrics, and this is a way to kind of incorporate sabermetrics with effectiveness,” Oakland closer Blake Treinen said. “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. 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.”
Yankees reliever Zach Britton, a two-time All-Star reliever with Baltimore, said this new method was unfathomable just five years ago. Views started to change when the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians used bullpens in a non-traditional manner in the 2016 postseason. Tampa Bay was 46-38 with regular starters this year and 44-34 when opening with relievers.
“I think the data shows that it’s an effective way,” Britton said. “The hitters, they’re not able to get comfortable off a starter. There’s a new guy possibly every time you come to the plate. So it’s a good strategy, and you know why teams are starting to do it, because it’s effective.”
Hendriks, a 29-year-old in his third season with Oakland, started for Minnesota (2011-14) and Kansas City (2014) before Toronto converted him to the bullpen in 2015. He had a 7.36 ERA in 13 relief appearances this season when he was designated for assignment on June 25 to clear a roster spot for Edwin Jackson.
Then 40-38, the A’s won their next six games and 11 of 13.
“Apparently I’m a pariah,” Hendriks said jokingly.
After 21 appearances with Triple-A Nashville, he was brought back on Sept. 1 when active rosters expanded to 40. As Hendriks was checking into a hotel in Oakland that day, he received a telephone call from pitching coach Scott Emerson.
“’By the way, you’re going to start today,’” Hendriks recalled Emerson telling him. “I got to the field about an hour later, and it was kind of, ‘Yep, we’re going to try this opening thing, see how it goes.’”
Hendriks was removed with the score 0-0 after 30 pitches and five outs, and Danny Coulombe allowed Ben Gamel’s two-run double. The A’s tied a club record by using nine pitchers in an 8-7 loss to Seattle. After that, Hendriks pitched seven shutout innings in his last seven starts, allowing four hits.
His fastball velocity was 97 mph in September, up 3-4 mph from earlier this season.
“I think it was a big wake-up call for him, because he hadn’t been in that position for quite a while,” Melvin said of the demotion. “Maybe a little bit more focused in what he’s doing now.”
Hendriks received a text from Melvin at 10:58 a.m. informing him of the decision. The pitcher calls himself an “opener,” not a starter, and it’s unclear who will follow . The only starter expected to be on Oakland’s roster Wednesday is Edwin Jackson.
What is clear is Hendriks will be only the fourth pitcher to commence a postseason game after a regular season of no wins, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Virgil Trucks started twice for Detroit in the 1945 World Series after returning from World War II and making one regular-season appearance. Milwaukee’s Yovani Gallardo returned from a torn knee ligament in 2008 and St. Louis’ Chris Carpenter came back from surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome in 2012.
After arriving in New York, Hendriks went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Monday.
“My wife wanted to go see the Heavenly Bodies exhibit, which was incredible, and then I was super ecstatic to see all the medieval armor because that’s what I love,” he said. “I am reading a book now about the aftermath of the Battle of Hastings in 1066. So it’s all about medieval French and English and all of that.”