None of that stopped the Athletics from taking 3 of the first 4 meetings, and the one Seattle salvaged came the hard way — a 2-0 shutout that snapped a 3-game skid against this same opponent, with Bryan Woo striking out 9 over 8 innings and Cal Raleigh and J.P. Crawford stringing together back-to-back RBI singles for the only runs he'd need. That's the version of Seattle capable of hanging with anybody in the division. The other version showed up plenty in August.
That other version is the one dragging the season record down — Seattle went 11-16 in August and got outscored by 74 runs over the month, the kind of stretch that turns a fringe wild-card club into an afterthought fast. The Athletics, meanwhile, have won 4 of their last 5, and the power surge that's carried it is real: they hit 4 homers in a single inning during the September 4 win over Seattle, part of a series where the long ball did most of the damage.
Both injury boards are heavy enough that Friday's actual lineups are a guessing game right now, and both teams have games against other opponents to get through first — Seattle hosts Texas 3 times, the Athletics host Toronto twice — before this series even starts. Whatever's left standing on either roster by the time first pitch rolls around is the real story here, not what either club looks like today.