OAKLAND, Calif. – Former Nova Southeastern University baseball pitcher Mike Fiers is scheduled 
to start for the Oakland A’s in Thursday’s (Oct. 1) American League Wild Card game at the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum in a 3:10 p.m. EDT winner-take-all match-up with the Chicago White Sox. His appearance marks the fourth consecutive season with a Sharks alum making an MLB postseason appearance and six of the past seven seasons.
One of three MLB players selected from NSU in the 2009 Draft (along with J.D. Martinez and Miles Mikolas), the veteran right-hander from Deerfield Beach has a dominant record against the White Sox, going 4-0 with a 1.58 ERA against Chicago in his 10-year career – the lowest among all of his AL opponents. This season on the mound for Oakland, Fiers is 6-3 with a 4.58 ERA, striking out 37 with a 1.373 WHIP through 59 innings in 2020. Fiers was 5-2 with a 3.43 ERA in his last seven outings, and held a 4.09 ERA through four September starts.
Over the course of his career, he’s 15-4 with a 3.39 ERA at the Colliseum and 14-2 with a 3.10 ERA with the stadium as his home park, following his 2018 mid-season trade from the Detroit Tigers. Last season against the White Sox, Fiers was lights out, tossing 14.2 scoreless innings with 12 strikeouts to just one walk, and allowing only 11 hits – all singles.
An NSU Athletics Hall of Famer, this marks Fiers’ first postseason appearance since 2015, pitching against the Kansas City Royals in the AL Divisional Series. A win would give the A’s their first playoff series win since 2006.
The game will appear at 3:10 p.m. EDT on ESPN with the series split at 1-1 and the winner moving on to the AL Divisional Series to face the Houston Astros.
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