Oakland A’s baserunner Brent Rooker (25) slides into second base ahead of the throw for a double as Texas Rangers shortstop Jonathan Omelas (21) waits for the throw in the bottom of the sixth inning at the Oakland Coliseum on Wed Sep 25, 2024 (photo by Mauricio Segura Sports Radio Service)

Texas (75-83). 302 000 000. 5. 8. 1

Athletics (68-90). 010 000 000. 1. 9 0

Time: 2:49

Attendance: 35,270

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Oakland, CA

By Lewis Rubman

OAKLAND–The second day of the three day funereal—whoops!, I mean the final homestand—of the late Oakland Athletics ended with the deceased—I mean, departing—squad falling to the Texas Rangers, 5-1. in spite of having outhit their opponents, 9-8 on Wednesday night.

Neither team offered much in the way of starting pitchers. The Athletics gave the nod to Brady Bosso, a 26 year old rookie southpaw who has bounced up and down earlier this season between double A Midland, Triple A Las Vegas, and the team that will be moving to Sin City.

The rookie began the day with an attractive 1-0, 2.33 big league record, but Basso’s appeal slipped profoundly after what amounted to a cameo, three inning appearance. He was tagged with five runs, all earned, six hits, and the loss.

Two of the hits against him were home runs and accounted for four runs, Wyatt Langford’s two run blast to left in the first and Adolis García’s shot, also to left, in the third. He threw 54 pitches, only 28 of which counted as strikes, to 16 batters, and fell to 1-1, 4.03.

Cody Bradford, the Rangers’ starter, reached the major leagues on May 16 of last year and went 4-3, 5.30 for the World Series champion Rangers. He has done much better this year and managed to bring a 6-3, 3.59 record for a Texas team that was eliminated from playoff contention before the A’s.

I wouldn’t say he turned in a better performance than Bosso, just one that wasn’t as bad. He faced 21 batters over 3-2/3 frames while allowing six hits, three walks, and one, earned, run. He didn’t pitch enough innings to earn the win, which went to Matt Festa, the first of three Rangers relievers.

Festa, like the other two members of the Texas bullpen who worked Wednesday night, kept the A’s off the board. Festa did it for 2-1/3 innings. He gave up two hits and struck out an equal number of batters and improved his record to 6-1, 5.56). Andrew Chafin surrendered a hit and notched a K over 1-1/3 innings, and José Leclerc pitched the final 1-2/3 frames without allowing a baserunner.

.A trio of Athletic relief pitchers shut the Rangers out on a total of two hits in the six remaining innings.. The hits came off Joe Boyle, who pitched the fourth, fifth, and sixth episodes. Hogan Harris (two innings) and Grant Holman (one) disposed of the last ten Rangers to come to the plate.

Oakland’s sole run came with two down in the second inning, when Texas right fielder Adolis Garcia misjudged Daz Cameron’s fly by coming in on it while the ball sailed over his head for a triple and Darell Hernáiz singled him home.

The game was punctuated by repeated and voluminous chants of “SELL THE TEAM” and occasional weaker rendition of “Let’s Go, Oakland.”

Lawrence Butler and Brent Rooker had two hit days. Rooker’s were an infield single and a bloop double. Marcus Semien led off the game with his 1,500th career hit.

Thursday, afternoon’s 12:37pm PT game probably will be the last major league baseball game played in the Coliseum or in Oakland. The probable pitchers will be the Athletics’ JT Ginn (0-1 4.40) and the Rangers’ Kumar Rocker (0-1, 2.57). The game has been sold out.