Texas Rangers take a 14-3 win over Oakland Athletics to maintain lead in American League West
The Texas Rangers had a lot to be happy about on Friday, September 9 as they managed to beat the Oakland Athletics 13-4 at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington and raise their lead to 2.5 games in the American League West against the runner ups, Los Angeles Angels.
The team also slew the A’s for the ninth straight time.
Oakland pitcher, Brandon McCarthy, knew why.
"They're better than us," McCarthy said. "There's no sidestepping it."
The Rangers are currently 10-4 against the American League West rivals and it shows the power that lies on top of the food chain.
"It's not a fluke," McCarthy said. "They're just a really good team that seems to have good performances against us. We're looking up at them right now."
The game however started out well for the A’s as Josh Willingham smashed a two-run homer in the first inning against Rangers’ pitcher Colby Lewis. Hideki Matsui was the second scorer in the play.
McCarthy however failed to keep a lid on the Rangers in the first as Ian Kinsler walked and eventually reached third when the pitcher committed a fielding error. Adrian Beltre then led in Kinsler to cut the gap with an RBI double. Michael Young scored the
second run when David Murphy lofted a sacrifice fly to centre-field.
With the score 2-2, things went quiet till the fifth inning when Kinsler scored again off an RBI double from Elvis Andrus. Adrian Beltre then ran to first on a throwing error from third baseman Scott Sizemore. Andrus would score the fourth run from the play.
The score was now 4-2 and the Rangers extended their lead in the seventh when Andrus picked up an RBI single. Michael Wuertz, who replaced McCarthy on the mound, deflected the ground ball to David De Jesus. Craig Gentry would score the fifth from the play.
Kinsler scored his third of the night when Michael Young smashed an RBI single to centre-field.
Andrus then scored when Beltre snatched a ground ball single. Young also scored later on as Mitch Moreland smashed a line drive single through right-field.
Matsui smashed a two-run homer in the eighth as Jemile Weeks ran home to put Oakland 4-8 against the Texans.
Things however fell apart for the A’s in the bottom of the eighth when Neil Wagner replaced Craig Breslow on the mound. He pitched a hit to Craig Gentry and the Rangers’ player fell out of play with an injury delay. He would move on to first base and that
would start trouble for the Oakland team. Bases were loaded when Kinsler reached the base with a fly ball and Andrus joined his two colleagues on base with a fielding error from Weeks.
Young smashed a three-run RBI double to lead the base runners home. The designated hitter was eventually rewarded when Mike Napoli smashed a two-run homer. Unable to respond in the top of the ninth, the Athletics lost the game 4-13.
Lewis cruised to his 12th win of the season with a concession of three runs off five hits in 7.1 innings.
"After that first inning, he settled down and hit his spots," manager Ron Washington said. "Most of the game, he kept the ball down, kept pounding the strike zone and kept getting outs."
Young took the moment to talk about the game changing events that took the Rangers to a comfortable win.
"We found a way [to score]," Young said. "Elvis' double was big. McCarthy was throwing the ball well, and we were able to string some at-bats together after that."
With the Rangers beating the A’s and the Los Angeles Angels beating the New York Yankees, the race is still on for the American League West crown.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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