by Jerry Feitelberg

The Texas Rangers turned the tables on the Oakland A’s Thursday afternoon at the O.Co Coliseum. One night after being routed by the A’s, the Rangers pounded A’s pitching for ten runs, elevens hits, four of which were home runs and beat Oakland by a score od 10-1 to split the four-game series at two apiece.

The Rangers scored three times in the first taking advantage of two Oakland errors. One was committed by Kendall Graveman, making his first start of the year and his A’s debut, and one by catcher Stephen Vogt who dropped a throw while attempting to tag a runner at the plate.
Graveman settled down and got through the second, but Texas got to him for two more runs. The big blow in the third was a Mitch Moreland home run with a man aboard to put Texas ahead 5-0. Graveman’s day came to an end in the fourth when Shin-Soo Choo blasted a ball into right field that went over the yellow line for a home run. There were two men on at the time of the blast and Texas blew the game wide open leading 8-0 in the fourth Evan Scribner was brought in to pitch for the A’s

Texas scored two more times on solo home runs. Adrian Beltre hit one in the seventh and Ranger second baseman Rougned Odor put one over the fence in the eighth. The A’s scored their lone run of the game in the bottom of the eighth when Eric Sogard singled and he scored on a double by Marcus Semien. Final score 10-1 in favor of Texas.

Game notes. The A’s started the season 2-2 for the third consecutive year. Kendall Graveman took the loss. The Rangers’ Nick Martinez pitched well allowing just four hits and no runs in seven innings of work. The line score for Texas was 10 runs, 11 hits, and no errors while the line for Oakland was one 1 run, 6 hits and 3 errors. Evan Scribner went 3 and 2/3rds innings of work and allowed one run and three hits.

The A’s continue the homestand as the Seattle Mariners will be here for three games. Lefty Drew Pomeranz will go for Oakland and he will be opposed by righty Tijuan Walker.
Game time is 7:05 Friday night at the O.Co Coliseum

Thursday’s game time was a speedy 2 hours and 32 minutes and 16,045 watched the A’s get drubbed.