The Texas Rangers allowed a season-high tying five home runs as they fell 9-2 to the Athletics at Globe Life Field on Wednesday.
ARLINGTON, Texas -- On Wednesday afternoon, the Texas Rangers had an opportunity to complete a sweep of the Athletics.
Unfortunately for Texas, the sweep did not come to fruition as they fell 9-2 in their final game of the season against the A’s.
It seemed at first that things would bounce the Rangers' way in this one as they got off to a quick start offensively.
Ezequiel Duran belted his first career leadoff home run to put Texas up 1-0. The blast marked the Rangers' 11th leadoff home run of the year, their most in a single season in franchise history.
In the second inning, Justin Foscue connected his 11th home run of the year into the A’s bullpen to make it 2-0.
After that, it would be all Athletics.
Cody Bradford got the start for the Rangers and struggled, going just four innings and allowing five earned runs on seven hits while walking one and striking out three.
“Cody’s fastball at the top got hit,” Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said after the game. “A couple home runs were middle up, to the opposite field, and then obviously a pull-side home run.
"Some longer counts, 85 pitches through four, so had to get him out of there to try and keep us within striking distance, but unfortunately they hit another home run, so we just couldn’t really stop the bleeding…"
After posting a pair of scoreless innings, Bradford allowed a leadoff single to A’s ninth-hole hitter Denzel Clarke in the third. The next two batters, Henry Bolte and Zack Gelof, each hit home runs to give the Athletics a 3-2 lead.
In the fourth, Bolte would hit another two-run home run off Bradford to extend the lead to 5-2.
Looking to keep the game close, Texas turned to its bullpen, bringing in Robby Ahlstrom in the fifth.
Ahlstrom allowed a solo home run to former Ranger Jonah Heim and later in the inning would give up a two-run shot to A’s shortstop Alika Williams to make it 8-2. The Athletics would tack on their ninth and final run in the seventh against Jordan Montgomery.
With the loss, the Rangers fell back to two games under .500 at 69-71. With a win, Texas would have been exactly .500 at 70-70 through the season’s first 140 games.
“It would have been nice to sweep; there’s no doubt,” Schumaker said. “We felt good about Bradford coming in today with a pretty fresh bullpen as far as leverage guys were concerned, and we were going to try to match up as quickly as we could, but winning the series is the goal. It always has been the goal, but it was really important to start the homestand by winning the series.”
