Oakland A’s 9, Texas Rangers 1

by PegNews wire

The Texas Rangers' chance at making the postseason continues to dwindle, as the Rangers lost 9-1 to the Oakland A's Tuesday night in Oakland. The loss was the eighth in their past eleven games, and dropped Texas to 82-68 on the year.

With the loss, the Rangers are still 7 1/2 games out of first place in the AL West with 12 to play, and a full 7 games behind the Boston Red Sox for the wild card. Both Boston and the Angels also lost on Tuesday.

Rangers starter Brandon McCarthy was decent, surrendering three runs -- two of them earned -- on five hits over five-plus innings. McCarthy fell to 7-4 on the season with a 4.87 ERA.

Most of Oakland's damage was done against the Rangers bullpen in the bottom of the seventh, when the A's put five runs on middle reliever Willie Eyre to turn the game into a blowout.

Not that this Rangers squad could have come back from a 3-1 deficit: The season-long power outage for Texas was again noticeable Tuesday night, as the entire team collected just seven hits -- including just one for extra bases -- and three walks all night. David Murphy went 2-for-4 with an RBI double in the top of the sixth, driving in rookie phenom Elvis Andrus. Ivan Rodriguez also collected a pair of hits.

Posted by Todd M.