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The Oakland Telegraph
12 October 2026
Dominant A's cruise into championship series
By E. Zee, immodesty in victory correspondent
Oakland last night secured a remarkable tenth straight postseason series win, as they murdered the Boston Red Sox 3-0 to advance to their fifth American League championship series in as many years. Boston led the majors in team batting average and on-base percentage during the regular season, but their dynamic lineup proved no match for Oakland's excellent pitching. The A's batters showed up, and they triumphed 9-4, 3-2 and 8-4.
Jose Fernandez rolled back the years with a lovely performance in the second game, throwing 8 innings for just 2 earned runs. Patrick Snel and Javier Cruz both smashed two home runs during the series, with crowd-favourite Cruz also bagging 5 RBIs. GM Paulie Beane clearly couldn't believe how easy the win was in the end. He walked into his post-game press conference insisting that one of the journalists pinch him to prove he wasn't dreaming. Upon being told that they would rather not and his unusual demands were making people uncomfortable, he proceeded to tip a glass of water over his head. He then said, "Yep, so it did happen. Fan-bleeding-tastic. It's always a pleasure to beat Boston, with all their cash. I should be publicly offering my commiserations to them. But I wouldn't really mean it. So I won't."
The championship series will now be the match-up all neutral fans, and the TV networks, were hoping for. Oakland will face Minnesota, who won a seventh American League Central crown in a row, and were equally as pitiless in dispatching Toronto by a similar 3-0 scoreline in their divisional series. The A's and Twins have been the two dominant teams in the American League the last four or five years, and they finished with the two best regular season records again this time. They have also met in the playoffs the last two years, the A's prevailing in the championship series in 2024 and the divisional series last year. Can they make it a hat-trick over the Twins? It will be a heavyweight clash of the titans and we'll bring you all the action. Well, OK, we'll write a report after the series has finished, summarising how it's gone. You'll need to use a proper baseball news source like MLB At Bat, or indeed any newspaper other than this one, to find out what happens actually at the time.
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