ARLINGTON, Texas _ Kendall Graveman's flirtation with no-hit fame wound up on the wrong side of the wall. Even so, he was more than the Rangers could handle as the A's beat Texas 6-1 in one of the best-pitched games of the early season.
Graveman and Rangers' starter Yu Darvish were locked in a scoreless tie through five innings. The A's broke through with a run set up by a Ryon Healy double to chase Darvish in the sixth, then added another run off reliever Tony Barnette in the seventh.
To that point, Graveman had allowed just one walk to Texas, his sinker producing an endless string of routine ground ball outs. He started the bottom of the seventh with back-to-back strikeouts, but Mike Napoli picked on a sinker that didn't and hammered it out to left-center to end both the no-hitter and the shutout.
Graveman gave up a second hit but pitched out of the inning, preserving the 2-1 lead. To that point, a dozen of the 21 outs he recorded were on grounders and another five came on strikeouts. He was up to 85 pitches at that point and it seemed likely he was done for the night
Before Santiago Casilla could take over in relief for Graveman, however, the A's presented their starter with the gift of three more runs. Jed Lowrie had an RBI double with the help of the winds whipping in right field, and Yonder Alonso followed that with a rare homer off a left-handed pitcher, Dario Alvarez. Of his 40 career homers, that was just the seventh off a lefty for Alonso.
Oakland went on to add a final run in the ninth on a Rajai Davis double and Marcus Semien RBI single.
Graveman's emphasis on throwing the sinker the majority of the time and taking his chances continued to work well for him in his second start of the season.
The first batter the Rangers put up, Carlos Gomez, lined out to center, but Texas wouldn't get another ball to the outfield until the fourth inning as Graveman's sinker produced grounder after grounder.
Through five innings, the only base runner Graveman allowed was a one-out walk to Rougned Odor in the second inning. Graveman had a chance to turn a double play after fielding a Jonathan Lucroy grounder, but a throwing error gave Texas two men on with one out.
No matter. Graveman came back to induce yet another grounder, this one off the bat of Joey Gallo. It was another comebacker, and this time Graveman's throw to Semien at short began an inning-ending double play.
The A's had a couple of chance to score early after Semien walked twice, each time reaching second base. And in the fifth, Rajai Davis doubled with one out, but he was picked off, the first time, remarkably, that Darvish had ever picked a runner off base.
So Oakland was scoreless through five innings, but finally broke through in the sixth. Matt Joyce walked, Healy doubled just inside the left-field line and with one out, Stephen Vogt's slow grounder to second base brought Joyce home with the game's first run.
Darvish was done after six innings and 97 pitches. Once he was gone, things began to break the A's way. Alonso singled off reliever Barnette, then took third when Napoli fielded Mark Canha's grounder only to throw it wildly past second base. Davis got the lead to 2-0 with a subsequent run-scoring fly ball to right.
