Texas Rangers Can't Hold Onto Lead, Fall To Oakland A's 6-4
OAKLAND, Calif. (CBSDFW.COM/AP) — The Texas Rangers couldn't hold on to a lead after four runs and fell to the Oakland Athletics Wednesday night.
Matt Olson homered twice, Ramon Laureano also went deep and the surging A's rallied to beat the Rangers 6-4.
Austin Allen hit his first career homer, a go-ahead, two-run drive in the seventh inning, as the A's stunned the Rangers late for a second consecutive night and won their fifth straight. On Tuesday, Stephen Piscotty hit a walk-off grand slam in Oakland's 5-1 win.
All six Oakland runs Wednesday came on homers.
"We've been known to hit some homers before and score all the runs with homers so it's not a surprise," manager Bob Melvin said.
Shin-Soo Choo homered on the game's first pitch for the second time in six days for the Rangers. Todd Frazier had a pair of singles and Nick Solak added an RBI double. Joey Gallo struck out four times.
Texas (3-7) is off to its worst start since 2006.
Olson hit a two-run homer off starter Kyle Gibson in the first, then added a solo shot off Luke Farrell in the eighth.
"Typically you don't lose a game because of four bad pitches, but that is what happened today," Rangers manager Chris Woodward said. "Every ball we made a mistake on, they hit a home run."
Allen, who played sparingly for the Padres last year, had the big hit with his two-run homer off Ian Gibaut (0-1) in the seventh. That put the A's ahead 5-4 and snapped a 1-for-13 funk for Oakland's young catcher.
"I didn't even feel it hit the bat. I just heard it," Allen said. "When I was running around first base and I saw it go over, I can't even put it into words."
T.J. McFarland (1-0) retired two batters to win. Joakim Soria pitched 1 2/3 innings for his second save.
Choo hit an opposite-field homer on Sean Manaea's first pitch. The Rangers' leadoff batter did the same thing to San Francisco's Logan Webb on Friday.
It's also nothing new for Choo. He has 36th career leadoff home runs, including nine on the game's first pitch. Choo's four leadoff homers at the Oakland Coliseum are the most by an opposing hitter.
Gibson had nine strikeouts in six innings for the Rangers. He gave up four hits and three runs while pitching on seven days of rest.
Manaea allowed four runs and six hits. The left-hander also walked a batter for the first time in his three starts.
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)