Rangers Lose To A’s

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ARLINGTON, Texas – The Oakland A’s hope their broken offense and left-handed pitcher Scott Kazmir are not only fixed but heating up for the American League playoffs.

Friday’s performance was a good sign for both.

Josh Reddick had a home run and three RBIs to help make a winner out of Kazmir and the Athletics, who snapped a three-game losing streak while moving a step closer to a berth in the postseason with a 6-2 victory over the Texas Rangers.

Reddick, the A’s right fielder who went 2-for-4, hit his 12th home run of the season in the fourth inning and drove in two with a single in Oakland’s three-run fifth. Designated hitter Adam Dunn, who was moved up to the No. 2 hole, had a two-run double.

The Athletics (87-73) can clinch an American League wild-card spot with a victory in one of their final two games or a Seattle Mariners loss. Seattle was playing a late game against the Los Angeles Angels on Friday.

Oakland remained one game behind the Kansas City Royals (88-72) for the first wild-card berth. In the race for the second wild card, the A’s are two games ahead of the Seattle. All three have two games remaining.

The Cleveland Indians were eliminated Friday.

“For us to actually capitalize on a team’s mistakes … we haven’t done that in a long time, much less

continue doing it,” Reddick said. “We’ve been saying all we have to do is get in and these last two months are forgotten.”

The last two months have been forgettable.

Oakland is 15-29 dating to Aug. 10 when the Athletics had a four-game lead in the AL West and were 28 games above .500. The Athletics also held an 11-game lead in the wild-card standings.

That all evaporated under the burden of an offense that disappeared and the hard-charging Angels, who surpassed Oakland and won the AL West Division.

The starting pitching has remained consistently good, except for Kazmir (15-9), who won for the first time in seven starts. The lefty gave up two runs (one earned) and four hits while striking out five in seven innings.

He was 0-4 with an 8.58 ERA in his previous six outings, including a no-decision in his last start in which he gave up six runs on 11 hits in 5 1/3 innings. He again fell behind early Friday after giving up a one-run double to Texas left fielder Ryan Rua in the first.

“Last time out was a pretty rough outing for him,” Reddick said. “So for him to bounce back — especially after the first inning not going the way he wanted to — I think it was huge.

“That’s a big pickup for him and us.”

After surrendering the run in the first, Kazmir retired 12 of the next 13 hitters he faced before giving up an unearned run in the fifth.

Texas second baseman Rougned Odor, who reached on an error by first baseman Brandon Moss, scored from third on center fielder Leonys Martin’s groundout.

“That was the best I’ve seen him,” Texas manager Tim Bogar said of Kazmir. “The last time we saw him I thought he was OK, but he was a little better tonight.”

The loss snapped a five-game winning streak for Texas (66-94), which entered having won 12 of its last 13 games.

Right-handed pitcher Nick Tepesch (5-11) suffered the loss, working 4 1/3 innings and giving up six runs (five earned), six hits and four walks.

“I didn’t really have good command,” said Tepesch, who lamented not doing a better job of getting ahead of hitters. “The hitter definitely has the advantage when you’re falling behind early.”

Right-handed pitcher Dan Otero and left-hander Sean Doolittle worked two scoreless innings of relief for the A’s.

The Athletics erased a one-run deficit by scoring twice on Dunn’s two-run double in the third inning. Oakland added a third run on Reddick’s home run in the fourth inning.

Oakland opened up the game with three in the fifth inning. Lowrie’s double scored third baseman Josh Donaldson. Lowrie, along with Moss, scored on Reddick’s double down the right-field line.

Oakland has been shut out five times over the last 27 games and has hit .210 over that period even after collected eight hits on Friday.

“That was huge,” Oakland manager Bob Melvin said of Dunn’s double. “The longer these things go on and you get base runners but don’t come through the more you press.

“Everybody in the dugout was pretty excited about it.”

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