There is something different about the ascendant Oakland Athletics, something difficult to define but evident as soon as you step into their clubhouse. We’re not guarding the flag,” Edwin Jackson, who is playing on his 13th major league team, said. You could say it this way: They actually, honestly embody all the attributes every other team in baseball thinks they possess. “We knew how good he was,” Manager Bob Melvin said of Chapman, a first-round pick out of Cal State Fullerton in 2014. We’re not guarding the flag,” Jackson said.

Source: Washington Post August 30, 2018 00:00 UTC