by Charlie O Mallonee

OAKLAND–The Oakland A’s returned home from a long road trip and in their first game against the Texas Rangers on Tuesday night they had starter Sonny Gray go out to the mound who pitches his heart out which turned out to be a two run ball game for a 2-1 lose and the A’s can’t come up with enough offense to keep them competitive.

So the A’s have now lost four in a row and this is exactly the kind of situation that the A’s cannot go through because their struggle is they have a record of 23-37 and are 14 games below .500. Their 11 games behind first place Houston so at this point their only goal is to get back to .500 or get back to .500. If your 14 games under .500 that’s tough to do and it’s the same old problem.

For the A’s it’s errors and that’s what really costed them in Boston they leave runners in scoring position last night against Texas 1-9 with runners in scoring in position. They left a runner stranded at third base that was the tying run to give them a chance to keep in the that ball game and have the potential run for the win.

The simply can’t do that the other day against Boston in the last game of the series in Fenway they went 4-13 with runners in scoring position and the other problem is relief pitching or the lack there of the relief core is just not getting it done. They did pretty well on Tuesday night in relief of Gray but the other problem is they couldn’t score any runs.

It’s really frustrating and right now the A’s are 9-18 at home, their 14-19 on the road, they always had a home field advantage especially with large territories and their not doing it at this point when their at home especially in front of the home fans. The A’s need right now is to focus on getting to .500 and it’s a struggle to get back there.

When they get back to .500 then you could start to look at things and then you could look at things and say what else are we able to do. The problem for the A’s the Rangers have won ten of their last 12. The Rangers have the best road record right now in the American League. The A’s after this Texas series in Oakland will go to the Southland and face the Angels and on Monday and Tuesday for two games in San Diego. The Padres are much improved team this season look out A’s.

Charlie O does A’s commentary each week listen to his podcast below at http://www.sportsradioservice.com