Texas Rangers’ Nathan Eovaldi pitches against the Oakland Athletics during the seventh inning at Oakland Coliseum on Thu May 11, 2023 (AP News photo)  

Texas (23-14). 000 012 100. – 4. 7. 0

Oakland (8-31). 000 000 000 – 0. 3 0

Time: 2:16

Attendance: 2,949

Thursday, May 11, 2023

By Lewis Rubman

OAKLAND–After snapping their season high two game winning last Sunday, your Oakland Athletics lost four straight games and came home today with a record of 8-30, .211, in hot pursuit of the 1899 Cleveland Spiders’ 20-134 (.130), the worst record in major league history.

Sarcasm aside, the major news about the A’s concerns their wheeling and dealing on the Las Vegas real estate market. Speaking of Vegas, Oakland added a couple of Aviators to their roster today. One of them was Luis Medina, who had pitched one big league game before he took the mound as the Athletics’ s starter this evening, That was on April 25, when he gave up eights hit and five runs in a 5-3 loss to the Angels. (The other Vegas call up was fellow right handed starter Zach Neal).

Thursday night, Medina began brilliantly and faded into mediocrity after four innings of work. The first hit he allowed was a triple to Nathaniel Lowe with two out in the top of the fourth. It would have been a single had it not been for JJ Bleday’s ill advised attempt at a diving watch.

That play resulted in an earned, but undeserved, run. When he left after the sixth inning, the youngster had been charged with three runs, all earned, on five hits. He didn’t walk anybody but threw two wild pitches. He had three strike outs to his credit, and 50 of his 87 pitches were counted as strikes. He brought his ERA down to 8.18. He also took the loss in the Athletics’ 4-0 defeat by the Rangers

The Rangers’ starter was more experienced than Medina. Evan Eovaldi is a 33 year old veteran now in his 13th season of MLB ball. His best season came in 2021, when he was named to the AL all star team as a Red Sox and fiinished fourth in the voting for the Cy Young award. He brought a career record of 71-70, 4.13 and a season’s mark of 4-2, 3.22 in his duffle bag with him to the decaying monument to seasons past on the banks of the River Nimitz.

Eovaldi was in fine form tonight. He came as close as you can to throwing a complete game , 8-2/3 innings.

The rookie and the veteran put kept each other’s team off board until the top of the fifth when, with Josh Jung on first with a lead off single and one down, Medina unleashed a wild pitch to Jonah Heim, allowing Jung to reach second. Medina almost dodged the Rangers’ bullet by striking out Ezequiel Durán, but Leody Tavares smacked a clean single to center to put the possee from the Lone Star State in the saddle, 1-0.

Medina weakened considerably after that. Marcus Semien led off the sixth with a resounding home run, his seventh, to left. It came off a 2-2 four seamer and travelled 403 feet before landing beond the left center field fence.

Fellow ex-Athletic Robby Grossman followed with double to right and moved on to third on Nathaniel Lowe’s fly to the foot of the warning track in right field. He came hone onb a wild pitch to Adolis Garcia. Two outs later the A’s came to bat in the bottom of the sixth trailing 3-0.

It was 4-0 when they came up in the bottom of the seventh. Sam Long had relieved Medina and surrendered a lead off double Jonah Heim, who eventually scored from third on third on a failed 3-6-1 double play attempt on Josh Smith’s grounder to Noda. Long stayed in the game through the eighth, yielding to Austin Pruitt at the start of the ninth. He held Texas to an infield single.

Oakland kept fighting until the end. With two out in the bottom of the ninth Esteury Ruiz deposited a double in the left field corner, and Noda walked. That brought Will Smith in from the bullpen to strike out Rooker and earn earn his seventh save of the season.

The series continues tomorrow, Friday, at 6:40. The Rangers’ Martín Pérez (4-1, 3.86) will go against Oakand’s Ken Waldichuk (1-2, 7.25)