By Matthew T.F. Harrington

OAKLAND, Calif. – As a rain washed through the Bay Area, temporarily easing the minds of dried out Californians, 25 athletes found solace from a few droughts of their own. The Oakland A’s snapped their four-game losing streak, outlasting a dominant Yovani Gallardo start to walk off against the Rangers bullpen 5-4. The much maligned A’s bullpen pitched 5 1/3 innings of scoreless baseball, struggling Billy Butler contributed with a big hit and Oakland became the Walk-off Capital of the World for the first time in 2015.

“Things are starting to go our way right now,” said A’s starter Jesse Hahn. “Hopefully it’s a big momentum changer for us.”

After an eighth-inning rally tied the game for the A’s (24-37), a ninth-inning surge put Oakland back in the win column. Sam Fuld, struggling with a batting average below .200, singled to open the inning, then swiped second base. After a Billy Burns infield single, Josh Reddick stepped up to the plate with a chance to win the game. He laced a bouncer off losing pitcher Keone Kela (4-3, 2.42 ERA) to a drawn in second baseman Adam Rosales for the walk-off fielder’s choice and a shaving cream pie from Stephen Vogt.

“We used to specialize in those here for a while,” said A’s manager Bob Melvin. “It’s nice to come back from 4-2 and tie it, then come back and score another run.”

On Tuesday, the A’s struggled to score until the starter was long removed from the equation but Wednesday Oakland jumped on Gallardo early in a promising start. Billy Burns started the inning on second base after Joey Gallo’s throwing error, moved to third on Josh Reddick’s single then came home on Ben Zobrist’s fielder’s choice.

Staked to an early lead, Hahn found his way into the A’s history books for the wrong reasons Wednesday. The righty plunked 3 batters over a brief 3 2/3 innings, becoming the 9^th Athletic to serve up a triple beanball performance. He was touched up for 4 runs, including a 3-run third inning where the Rangers batted around despite only collecting three hits in the frame. Hahn plunked two batters and issued a free pass in his struggling to retire the Rangers in the 3^rd.

“I just didn’t have my stuff,” said Hahn. “It was one of those weird outings, no fastball command, no feel for the breaking ball. When you don’t have that it’s hard to pitch well at this level.”

In his previous four outings, Hahn had allowed only 8 earned runs over 27 1/3 innings. In his penultimate outing, the 25-year-old pitch a complete game shutout in Detroit. Tuesday marked the first time all season he failed to pitch a full 5 innings, a stretch spanning 10 starts.

“It’s frustrasting because I was confident going out there,” said Hahn. “I was confident I’d put up good numbers again. It happens. It’s one of the weird ones. I’ve already forgotten about it. I have to let it go and move on to the next one.”

Oakland cut the lead in half in the bottom of the 4^th, with Stephen Vogt opening the inning with the first A’s hit since the first inning. Vogt doubled to open the inning, then moved over to third base on a wild pitch with one out. He came around to score on Brett Lawrie’s grounder to short to put Oakland back within a pair of runs at 4-2.

Gallardo settled down after that, giving the Rangers their second-straight six-plus inning, two-run start against the A’s. The 29-year-old righty fired seven innings, picking up a season-high 10 strikeouts. Of his 110 pitches, an astounding 73 went for strikes.

Over 12 starts this year, the hard-tossing Gallardo has yet to allow more than four runs. Despite his consistent performances, he’s currently tied for 5^th in the American League with a Texas-leading 6 losses. While he wasn’t tagged with the loss, Gallardo had to settle for a no-decision after his bullpen squandered the two-run advantage.

Oakland scored two runs in an inning for the first time in 24 innings in the eight, the first inning of work for the Rangers bullpen. Josh Reddick singled off southpaw Sam Freeman with one out, then Zobrist welcomed Tanner Scheppers into the game with a base-hit to right field. With the throw coming to third to try to cut down Reddick, Zobrist advanced to second on the play. Rangers third baseman Joey Gallo overthrew the ball, allowing Reddick to score easily. Vogt walked, bringing DH Billy Butler to the plate.

Over his last 10 games, “Country Breakfast” was hitting at a slim .179 batting average with only 7 hits and 3 RBIs over 39 at-bats. The big man came through in the clutch Wednesday, connecting on the game-tying single to plate Zobrist.

“A lot of times it’s a hit like that that’ll get you going,” said Melvin. “It’ll loosen you up a little bit. He finally found a hole.”

Lawrie popped out for the second out and Max Muncy gave a Scheppers offering a ride, but right fielder Shin-Soo Choo pulled in the ball with his back against the fence.

The comeback wouldn’t have been possible without contributions from the bullpen. Pat Venditte (2 1/3 innings), Fernando Abad (1) and Evan Scribner (1) combined for 4 1/3 innings of scoreless baseball, while Tyler Clippard (1-3, 3.20) picked up his first win of the season after pitching a scoreless ninth.

“That’s probably the key to the game,” said Melvin. “What Venditte did was terrific. Fernando Abad coming in and contributing, having an easy inning. The whole bullpen was probably the key to the game.”

The A’s now have a chance to win the series with Scott Kazmir squaring off against rookie Chi Chi Gonzalez in Thursday’s finale. If they manage to win the series, it’ll be the first time in six series since the Rangers (31-28) were on the losing end.