Rangers Sweep A’s

ARLINGTON, Texas — An older and wiser Yu Darvish appears to also be a revitalized pitcher for the Texas Rangers.

A day after his 30th birthday, the hard-throwing, crafty right-hander turned in a second consecutive victory, a 6-2 win over the Oakland A’s on Wednesday night.

Ian Desmond and Jonathan Lucroy each had three RBIs in support of Darvish (4-3), who allowed two runs, eight hits and a walk while striking out nine in seven innings.

“The whole body of work was special,” Texas manager Jeff Banister said. “To have Darvish utilize the slider like he did tonight. A premier pitch, and he was able to regulate the velocity of the fastball.”

Between the Texas right-hander and relievers Jake Diekman and Matt Bush, Rangers pitchers struck out 13 Oakland hitters.

Bush struck out the side in the ninth in a non-save appearance.

Desmond was 2-for-4 with a two-run single in the fifth inning and an RBI base hit in the Rangers’ three-run seventh. Lucroy had a solo homer in the fourth and added a two-run double in the seventh that gave

Darvish breathing room in the finale of a three-game sweep of Oakland.

Elvis Andrus was 3-for-4 with two runs scored for Texas.

Darvish’s only blemishes were solo home runs by Coco Crisp to lead off the game and Jake Smolinski that gave the A’s another brief lead.

Darvish, coming off Tommy John surgery and a second DL stint with a sore shoulder, worked into the eighth inning for the first time this season and has now won two straight since snapping a three-game losing skid. Darvish is 2-3 with a 2.70 ERA since returning from the DL on July 16.

Between Crisp’s and Smolinski’s home runs, Darvish retired 11 of 15 hitters.

“His starts have been a little different in that we’ve adjusted the game plan as we go along,” said Lucroy, acquired by Texas from Milwaukee at the trade deadline. “Tonight, they were all over the fastballs up, so we had to go down again and use that fastball up more sparingly. We were able to keep those guys off-balance and create a lot of weak contact.”

Oakland left-hander Sean Manaea (4-8) suffered the loss, giving up four runs and nine hits while striking out five in six innings. He fell to 0-5 away from Oakland Coliseum. The outing marked only the second time he has not registered a quality start in his last six starts.

Right-handed reliever Liam Hendricks gave up two runs, two hits and two walks (one intentional) in two-thirds of an inning in the seventh.

“It just wasn’t there today, I guess,” Manaea said. “It wasn’t there. It’s pretty frustrating, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. I just have to move on. They’re tough. They’re a really good hitting team and they make you pay for your mistakes.

“They did their job today and I didn’t.”

After Smolinski’s smash, Darvish retired six straight before flirting with trouble in the seventh.

With runners on first and third with one out, the right-hander struck out Max Muncy and Crisp, who entered with a major-league leading .450 average with runners in scoring position.

Oakland left six on base. Texas left seven stranded.

“That was a huge inning for him,” Banister said. “To be able to come back and shut that inning down was a huge plus for Yu. It was a big momentum builder for him. The ability to use all his pitches … a tremendous inning going forward. That’s the type of stuff and pitcher Yu is.”

Texas sent eight hitters to the plate in the seventh.

Andrus and Drew Stubbs opened with consecutive hits followed by a walk to Delino DeShields.

Desmond drove Hendricks’ pitch to the opposite field to score Andrus.

After Carlos Beltran hit into a double play grounder to second (4-2-3), Oakland manager Bob Melvin brought in right-hander Daniel Coulombe and elected to intentionally walk Adrian Beltre.

Lucroy, the next hitter, drove a ball down the right-field line to score DeShields and Desmond.

“Up there in that situation they’re trying to get you to roll over, create week contact … the guy is a sinker-ball pitcher they want you to roll something or get jammed,” Lucroy said. “I was trying to hit the ball hard somewhere, and he left one up in the zone.”

Darvish left with a runner on second and no outs in the eighth. Diekman left Danny Valencia stranded by retiring all three hitters he faced, including a strikeout of Khris Davis.

Crisp took Darvish’s second offering of the game deep to right for his 11th home run of the season.

Darvish worked around consecutive two-out singles in the third before Lucroy evened the score with a solo home run in the fourth.

“The 2-0 fastball to Smolinski … that’s what major-league hitters do to 2-0 fastballs if you leave them over the plate. Coco hit a fastball early,” Banister said. “Other than that … “

The Rangers got the better of an exchange of runs in the fifth. Smolinski, the first hitter in the top of the inning, hit the game’s third solo homer to give the A’s a new one-run lead, but Texas answered.

Desmond’s two-run single scored Andrus and DeShields, the outfielder’s fifth and sixth RBIs in his last eight games.

“They just got bigger hits than we did,” Oakland manager Bob Melvin said. “We had a couple of opportunities where we could have extended our lead early or gotten closer after they took the lead. Then they got big hits when they needed to.”