The Oakland A’s seven-game win streak was snapped Friday with an 8-6 loss to the Texas Rangers in Arlington, Texas. The pitching, defense and solid base running, some of the A’s strengths, faltered in the loss.
The Rangers were aggressive against Cole Irvin early in the count with payoffs. Texas took a 3-0 lead in the first inning thanks to a pair of errors from Starling Marte and Jed Lowrie, a Nathaniel Lowe RBI single and a sacrifice fly.
True to form, the A’s gained steam late in the game against Rangers starter Dane Dunning. Mitch Moreland had the A’s only hit until the fifth inning, when Seth Brown doubled home Matt Chapman and Starling Marte beat out an infield single to score Brown from third, putting the A’s within one.
Oakland took the lead in the next inning on an RBI double from Moreland and RBI single from Chapman. But an infield error caught up with Irvin in the sixth, and he departed with no outs and two on. In relief, Sergio Romo served up a first-pitch slider for call-up Yohel Pozo, who hit a go-ahead three-run home run off the foul pole in left. It was the first run Romo allowed since June 26 and snapped a 17 appearance scoreless streak for the relief pitcher.
Matt Olson lined his 29th home run of the season over the right field fence to put the A’s within one. But Yusmeiro Petit issued a four-pitch walk and DJ Peters made it pay with a second-deck, two-run home run.
Brown doubled home Chapman from first base again in the eighth after Chapman drew his seventh walk over the last two games (he walked five times in Thursday’s win). But Brown was tagged out rounding second base too aggressively to end the inning.
