OAKLAND — The Oakland A’s barley squeezed out a split in their road trip to Texas last week. Their struggles against the Rangers continued with a 5-4 loss to their American League West foe on Tuesday night in front of a crowd of 4,739 at a full capacity Coliseum.
With the loss and the Houston Astros’ loss, the A’s also failed to gain ground in the division. With a trip to Texas to play the Rangers and Astros next week, these next series could be crucial in the A’s division positioning heading into the second half.
James Kaprielian struck out five of the first seven batters he faced, but the Rangers started to generate hard contact the second time through the order. Joey Gallo hit a pair of home runs, but Kaprielian mitigated the damage otherwise, holding the Rangers to three earned runs on six hits with six strikeouts without a free pass. Texas’ third run came via former A’s backup catcher Jonah Heim’s RBI double.
Matt Chapman gave the A’s an early 1-0 lead in the first with his 11th home run of the season to extend his hit streak to a career-high 16 games. Eli White misplayed Ramón Laureano’s drive in left field, allowing Jed Lowrie to score from first base for the A’s second run.
J.B. Wendelken pitched a scoreless inning with an intentional walk to Gallo in his return from the injured list and first appearance since May 1.
Domingo Acevedo gave up a two-run home run to Nick Solak in the ninth before Jed Lowrie and Mitch Moreland hit a pair of home runs to put the A’s back within walk-off distance in the bottom of the inning. Elvis Andrus represented the game-tying run after singling up the middle and Chad Pinder the winning run at the plate with two outs, but Pinder popped out on the first pitch to end the game.
_______
