2002 Oakland Athletics season

The new-look Athletics, despite a comparative lack of star power, surprised the baseball world by besting the 2001 team's regular season record.

General manager Billy Beane sought to replace Damon and Giambi with free agent hitters Scott Hatteberg and David Justice.

Beane also made a number of key pitching acquisitions; most notably, he traded for Toronto Blue Jays reliever Billy Koch, who ultimately succeeded Isringhausen as the team's closer.

The surge propelled the club to within two games of first place, but a prolonged funk saw the A's play roughly .500 baseball for the next month and a half.

Many of the Athletics' victories were by narrow margins: closer Billy Koch recorded either a win or save in 12 of the streak's 20 games.

Over the first three innings of the game, Oakland shelled Kansas City pitchers Paul Byrd and Darrell May for a total of 11 runs, building a seemingly insurmountable 11–0 lead.

Pinchhitter Scott Hatteberg then hit a one-out solo walkoff home run off of Kansas City reliever Jason Grimsley.

[12] Tejada and starting pitcher Barry Zito went on to win the American League MVP and Cy Young Award, respectively.

[18][19] Note: POS = Position; G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; SV = Saves; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts Source:[15] Note: POS = Position; G = Games played; AB = At bats; AVG = Batting average; OBP = On base percentage; H = Hits; 2B = Doubles; 3B = Triples; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in Note: Only players with at least one at-bat are listed.