The Oakland Athletics were hoping to gain some ground in the American League West as they met up with the Texas Rangers for the first time in 2012 on Wednesday. Oakland was handed a 4-1 loss as they fell to 19-19.
The A's scored the first run of the game in the top of the first inning when Josh Reddick hit a sacrifice fly to drive in Jemile Weeks. After that, the Oakland bats were quiet, managing just four hits in the game, three of which were singles.
Still, the Rangers only managed one significant inning, but it was enough. Adrian Beltre hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the fourth inning to give Texas the lead. The Rangers would then tack on two insurance runs in the same inning on back-to-back RBI singles by Craig Gentry and Elvis Andrus.
Tom Milone went seven innings, giving up nine hits and one walk, but the four runs allowed were just too much for the Oakland offense to overcome. Rangers starter Yu Darvish was quite effective in his first game against the A's, striking out seven and walking two while allowing just one run and four hits over seven innings.
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