Small Ball Enough for the A’s: Athletics 3 Rangers 2

The game ended with Ron Washington’s favorite score posted on the scoreboard. Unfortunately, the Rangers were on the wrong end of a 3-2 game Sunday.

On a combination of infield hits and sacrifice flys, the offensively-challenged A’s squeezed one out against the division-leading Rangers. After losing the last two contests, the Rangers’ lead in the American League West is now 7 ½ games.

Colby Lewis drew the A’s young ace, Trevor Cahill, for the fourth time this season. That only happens in intra-division games where in the AL West, the teams play each other 19 games per year. This game remained scoreless through five innings until the Rangers finally broke through in the sixth against Cahill, the owner of the lowest opponents’ batting average in the league. But of course, that doesn’t scare Josh Hamilton, who doubled to score Elvis Andrus, who reached first on an error by his A’s counterpart, Cliff Pennington. The heads-up Hamilton reached third on a separate miscue in left field by Rajai Davis. He scored on a sacrifice fly by Nelson Cruz, and the Rangers went ahead 2-0.

In the sixth, Lewis finally cracked after skirting around baserunners in every inning to that point. Kevin Kouzmanoff doubled to start the inning, but the next batter, Mark Ellis, advanced him to third with one out and Davis hit a sacrifice fly.

Darren Oliver came out of the bullpen for the seventh. From the bottom of the order, Pennington led off with a single and crossed home plate on Coco Crisp’s double. A sacrifice bunt put Crisp at third before bringing him home on yet another sacrifice fly by Kurt Suzuki, the leading hitter for the A’s.

Darren O’Day finished the game, and Oliver took the loss and Cahill the win.