By Kahlil Najar

The A’s played possum all night until the top of the eighth inning when they exploded for seven runs including Mark Canha’s third homer of the year to beat the Texas Rangers 7-5.

Rangers starting pitcher Colby Lewis had a great game as he went six innings with eight strike outs and only walked a pair of batters. The Rangers offense was even hitting on all cylinders. At the end of seven innings, the Rangers were in the lead 5-0 thanks to home runs from Blanks and a towering 440 foot shot by Prince Fielder.

It was that top of the eighth that the Rangers wish they could have back.

The Rangers replaced reliever Alex Claudio with Shawn Tolleson and he promptly gave up a homer to Canha to give Oakland their first run of the evening. After a Sogard single and a Marcus Semien walk, Stephen Vogt smacked a single to right field that scored Sogard and brought the lead down to three.

After a Billy Butler strike out and a new reliever from Texas, Max Muncy walked and red hot Josh Reddick hit a single to center field that scored both Semien and Vogt to make it a one run lead. The Rangers figured they’d need another change at pitcher so they sent in Roman Mendez who served up a nice pitch to Brett Lawrie who hit a line drive double to right field and score Muncy and Reddick to put the A’s in the lead for the first time tonight 6-5.

Canha came up for the second time this inning and hit a ground ball single to center field and scored Lawrie to make it a 7-5 game.

Scriber came in to handle the bottom of the eighth and able to handle the inning perfectly except for one walk to Carlos Peguero. Tyler Clippard came in for the save in the bottom of the ninth and retired the side in order to end the game.

On the seventh inning Oakland Head Coach Bob Melvin said, “There were just so many key at-bats in that inning. You could say Muncy’s walk. Lawrie had a fighting at-bat. He wasn’t going to be denied there.”

Melvin continued, “Any time you win a game that looked like you were going to lose, it gives you some confidence.”

 

Oakland hopes to continue that confidence tomorrow when they send Drew Pomeranz (1-2, 4.50) against Nick Martinez (2-0, 0.35), game time 5:05pm.