OAKLAND, Calif. _ Cole Hamels allowed six runs in 41/3 innings Saturday, and the Texas Rangers' offense again struggled to collect timely hits as the Oakland A's raced to an 8-3 victory.
The loss to the last-place A's was another blow to the Rangers' playoff hopes and knocked them back below .500. They entered the day two games behind Minnesota for the second wild-card spot.
The Rangers staked Hamels to a 2-0 lead as Adrian Beltre doubled in two runs in the first, but the game was tied by the third following two Chad Pinder solo home runs. The A's went ahead with a run in the fourth and ended Hamels' day with three in the fifth.
Jed Lowrie added a two-run double in the sixth to give him three RBIs. Beltre drove in his third run of the game with a groundout in the seventh, and he's two shy of tying Ernie Banks (1,636) for 28th all time.
Hamels' four-start winning streak came to an end Saturday, and the A's weren't just lucking into runs, as they hit several balls hard against the left-hander. None were harder than the two solo homers by Pinder in the first and third innings. The Rangers' Tony Barnette was tagged with two runs in the sixth.
The Rangers collected nine hits, just as they did Friday, but the outcome was largely the same _ a loss. Beltre drove in two of his three runs in the first on the double, but the Rangers didn't score again until he grounded out in the seventh. Elvis Andrus collected three hits on his 29th birthday, while Carlos Gomez went 0 for 3 and was hit by a pitch in his first game since Aug. 13.
