Top 10 takeaways from the A's winning the AL West

Grant Balfour Is His Own Action Figure

10) If this was the last week of Josh Hamilton's time in Texas, he really isn't leaving cloaked in glory

9) Grant Balfour looked like he was going to run through a wall to close this game

8) There were over 1,000 people in the building for standing room only tickets, proving yet again that when it comes to drawing a crowd, winning baseball is more important than winning baseball stadiums

7) Turning a 5-1 third inning lead into a 7-5 fourth inning deficit probably wasn't what the Rangers were hoping for when they traded for Ryan Dempster... but what they should have known would have happened due to the man's Ex-Cubness

6) I'm not saying that A.J. Griffin wasn't ready for this stage, but the A's equipment manager is just burning those pants, rather than laundering them

5) Ian Kinsler's 9th inning error was what happens when defensive players stop paying attention because they've lost all hope

4) This is the Stephen Drew -- steady in the field, helpful at the dish -- that Diamondback Fan never got, assuming of course that Diamondback Fan actually exists

3) By switching from Dempster to Derek Holland, Rangers manager Ron Washington let the A's switch from George Kottaras, having a terrible day behind the dish, to Derek Norris, who went deep... thereby shocking everyone who knows Wash for his great playoff in-game decisions

2) The A's bullpen threw 7.1 scoreless innings, with 5 base runners and 8 strikeouts, and the game was more or less saved by deep bullpen guy Evan Scribner

1) This is the fifth time in 130 years of major league baseball that a team has come back from 13 games down to win a pennant, the third time a team has come from 5 back with 9 to play, the seventh time they came back from 4 runs down to win in 2012, and the first time that a baseball team with four freaking rookie pitchers and driftwood all over the diamond won 68 out of their last 101 games