Advertisement

Athletics latest walk-off streak fueled by a lot of candy

Winning is sweet. The Oakland Athletics have not only won their last three games, but they’ve done so in dramatic fashion. All three contests have been decided on walk-off hits.

[Join a Yahoo Daily Fantasy Baseball contest now]

It’s an impressive accomplishment, but one that seems pretty random over the course of a long season. The A’s have just been fortunate to come through in big moments. They don’t have some secret weapon that gives them power in the late innings.

Actually, they do. With Tuesday’s game against the Los Angeles Angels tied 2-2 heading into the bottom of the 11th, catcher Stephen Vogt decided it was time to break out the team’s surprising rally item: A bag of Skittles.

Three batters later, Jed Lowrie ended the game with a walk-off solo home run. The Rally Skittles, or Hittles according to the team’s Twitter page, came through once again.

Jed Lowrie’s walk-off home run was fueled by candy. (AP)
Jed Lowrie’s walk-off home run was fueled by candy. (AP)

All late-inning rally items are fairly strange. The rally cap is an unusual idea, and don’t even get us started on the Rally Monkey. But the Rally Skittles trend actually has a fairly normal origin story.

As A’s catcher Stephen Vogt explains, it all started with a fan encounter during spring training.

According to Vogt, the team reeled off five straight wins after a fan gave them a bag of Skittles. Since baseball players tend to be pretty superstitious, the team went out and purchased a ton of Skittles for future use. That seems like a pretty good decision right now.

While the edible rally item is unusual, it’s the type of thing we can get behind moving forward. We would love nothing more than to see a player scarf down a hot dog and then hit a walk-off dinger. In fact, we’re pretty certain Babe Ruth did that at some point in his career.

More MLB coverage from Yahoo Sports:

– – – – – – –

Chris Cwik is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at christophercwik@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Chris_Cwik