The Texas Rangers Corey Seagar watches the flight of his three run homer against the Oakland A’s in the top of the eighth inning at the Oakland Coliseum on Mon May 6, 2024 (AP News photo)
Texas (20-16). 000 000 031. 4. 5. 2
Athletics (17-19). 010 010 000. 2. 7. 1
Time: 2:26
Attendance: 2,895
Monday, May 6, 2024
By Lewis Rubman
OAKLAND–The Athletics hoped to rebound from the drubbing they received at the fins of the Miami Marlins on Sunday afternoon, and they came within a few hare’s breaths of pulling it off, but they fell short, succumbing 4-2 in a game that featured strong pitching and crucial error by both squads.
11 year veteran Alex Wood didn’t bring impressive credentials to his eighth start of the season. His ERA of 6.32 was the fifth highest of big league hurlers who’d thrown 30 frames or more, and it was accompanied by a won and lost balance of 1-2.
This was consonant with his performance for the Giants last year, when he went 5-5. 4.33 with an opponents’ batting average. But he was sharp tonight, throwing six innings of two hit, shutout baseball. He allowed only one free pass. His pitch count was an economical 78, and only 24 were balls. He had to settle for a no decision but improved his earned run average, 5.30. Austin Adams took over mound duties for the seventh and put the Rangers down, 1,2,3.
The Rangers also went with a veteran lefty. Andrew Heany broke into the show with the Marlins in 2014 and has pitched for them, both Los Angeles teams, the Yankees, and the Rangers, for whom he went 10-4, 4.15 last year. He pitched almost as well as Wood, also going six frames, but allowing seven hits and two runs, one of them earned, striking out five, and also getting a no decision. He threw 97 pitches 71 for strikes, leaving with an ERA of 4.50.
The Athletics were the first to score. JD Davis led off the bottom of the second with a single to left and moved up a notch on Abraham Toro’s single to right. Shea Langeliers’ fly to right was deep enough for Davis to advance another 90 feet. Toro scored on Darell Hernaiz’s sacrifice fly to left, and Hernaiz took second on left fielder Ezequiel Durán’s errant throw home but was stranded when JJ Bleday’s pop up to first closed the door on the green and gold.
Durán played a pivotal role in the Athletics’ doubling their lead in the bottom of the fifth. With one out, JJ Bleday lifted a fly to left that Durán dropped. Bleday stopped at first, although if he had been running at full speed he probably could have reached second. He made to third on Brett Harris’s single to right center and came home on Esteury Ruíz’s sac fly to the center field warning track.
Bleday didn’t stop at first when he led off the “home” seventh with a line drive that bounced off the center field wall, just missing Leody Taveras’s glove, for a leadoff double that drove Heaney from the mound, replaced by José Leclerc. Both teams now had replaced their left handed starter with a right handed reliever. Leclerc was the agent of The Curse of the Leadoff Double, and the score remained 2-0, A’s, after seven.
Kotsay and Company called on Lucas Erceg to be the A’s setup man in the eighth. He walked a pinch hitting Josh Smith and fanned the pinch hitting Travis Jankowski but allowed a single to right by Taveras. There was a moment of calm after Marcus Semien lined out to second, but Corey Seager smacked a 92 mph changeup way deep, 422 feet deep, into the center field stands, over the Xfinity sign. The Athletics’ 2-0 lead had turned into a 3-2 deficit. The Rangers fans, who seemed to comprise a large portion of the 2,895 people in the stands, cheered loudly.
David Robertson set the A’s down in order in the bottom half of the frame.
Dany Jiménez pitched the top of the ninth and couldn’t contain the Texans, although it wasn’t entirely his fault. He issued a one out walk to Evan Carter, who batted for Carter two innings earlier. Josh Smith’s single to right put runners on first and second, bringing up Jankowski.
He hit a bouncer to Nevin, who had moved from right to first base. It might have become a rally killing double play, but we’ll never know Nevin couldn’t handle the ball, and Carter ran all the way home with the Rangers’ fourth tally while Smith made it to third. Jiménez walked Taveras to load the bases but wiggled out of trouble by retiring Semien and Seager.
There was a glimmer of hope when Bleday worked a one out walk against Ranger closer Kirby Yates, but Nathaniel Lowe nabbed Harris’s hard line drive to first and stepped on the bag to double off Bleday and put an end to the incipient rally.
Leclerc got the win for his 19 pitch effort and now is 3-2, 5.14. Yates earned his sixth save. Erceg was tagged with the loss and now has a record of 1-2, 3.60. It was his second blown save of the season.
These two well matched teams will meet each other again Tuesday, afternoon at 12:37, with Ross Stripling (1-5,4.24) facing a pitcher to be named later. The series will be wrapped up on Wednesday in a double header, with the first game also scheduled for a 12:37 start and 4:07pm for the night cap.
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