BY PAUL GACKLE

OAKLAND — Yoenis Cespedes flashed his speed, leather and hitting prowess at O.co Coliseum on Wednesday, propelling the Oakland A’s into baseball’s penthouse.

Cespedes went 2-for-4, scored a key run and made a highlight-reel catch in left field as the A’s topped the Texas Rangers 4-2 to move past the San Francisco Giants, claiming Major League Baseball’s best record at 44-28

“At any point in time in the season, if you can say you have the best record in baseball, it’s satisfying,” A’s Manager Bob Melvin said. “But there’s a lot of baseball yet to be played.”

In addition to having the best record in the game, the A’s currently hold a five-game lead over the Los Angeles Angels in the American League West standings.

Cespedes’ speed was on full display in the fifth inning when he scored from first base on a Brandon Moss double down the right field line, breaking a 2-2 tie by sneaking his left hand under catcher Robinson Chirinos’ glove. The lead stretched to 4-2 a couple of batters later when Stephen Vogt brought in Moss on a sacrifice fly to left.

The A’s scored their first two runs in the third inning when John Jaso doubled to left-center, scoring Craig Gentry, and Josh Donaldson brought in Jaso with a two-out single up the middle, notching his 52nd RBI of the season.

Cespedes showed off his muscle at the plate in the first inning, smacking a line drive over center fielder Leonys Martin’s head that one-hopped off the wall for a double.

As the A’s bats took care of business, Sonny Gray (7-3) returned to form on the mound, surrendering only two earned runs on six hits in seven innings of work.

After earning American League’s Pitcher of the Month honors in April, Gray cooled off toward the end of May and he entered Wednesday’s contest with a 5.63 ERA in his previous three starts.

“He’s a pretty driven kid,” Melvin said. “I don’t think he worries too much about thinking about, I need to bounce back. He’s just preparing for each outing and has high expectations for himself.”

Gray struck out the first two batters he faced on Wednesday and retired 10 of the first 11 Rangers that stepped up to the plate.

He received help from Cespedes in the fourth when the left fielder leaped in the air on the warning track to catch a rocket off the bat of Adrian Beltre, robbing him of extra bases with a runner on first.

“There always seems to be a couple of plays like that in a game, where if they don’t make the play, you never know where the game’s going to go from there,” Gray said. “At the time, it was a huge, huge play.”

Gray ran into trouble in the fifth when the Rangers scored a pair of runs off a Shin-Soo Choo single after loading up the bases with a pair of walks and an infield single. But after that, he retired six of the last seven batters he faced before Luke Gregerson pitched a scoreless eight and Sean Doolittle picked up his ninth save of the season, extending his scoreless innings streak to 22 1/3 innings.