That’s Oakland A’s, As In Agony

ARLINGTON _ The Oakland A’s will field a club for the rest of this series against the Rangers, though team trainer Steve Sayles might need some oxygen.

Four Athletics left injured during Tuesday night’s 5-4 Texas victory, including two pitchers. When Oakland lefty starter Brett Anderson had to go after rubbing up a blister on his second batter in the sixth inning, manager Bob Geren carefully explained to reliever Drew Bailey that he had all the time in the world to get warm on the mound even if it meant making the Ballpark crowd of 12,627 antsy in the process.

Then when Geren had to summon pitcher Michael Wuertz after Santiago Casilla hurt an ankle in the eighth inning, “It was like I had a recorder,” he said.

Which was only half the problem for the A’s. Nomar Garciaparra started at third base and didn’t make it into the third inning because of a calf injury. Bobby Crosby, struggling with a .120 batting average, came off the bench and headed to third … and then shifted over to second base an inning later when Mark Ellis left with his own calf problem.

“You don’t see that many medical problems like that in one night,” Geren understated.

All of that on top of Eric Chavez, who hasn’t played third base since Friday because of pain in his throwing elbow.

Geren said Garciaparra and Ellis are “excellent possibilities” to go on the disabled list.

Anderson is a rookie who was born in Midland, lived in Austin when father Frank was the University of Texas’ pitching coach and graduated from Stillwater High School after Dad became the Cowboys’ head coach. He limited the Rangers to three hits in five-plus innings and had five strikeouts, all looking. Of the seven right-handed hitting Rangers in the starting lineup, only Michael Young managed a hit off Anderson. In his previous start, he gave up five earned runs on nine hits in five and a third innings at Yankee Stadium.

“He has a pretty good-sized blister, but it’s a manageable problem,” Geren said. “We got him out before it put his next start in jeopardy. He was probably only going to go another inning or so, anyway.

“He had his breaking ball working. Threw some fastballs. Got some strikeouts. To pitch to this team in this ballpark and do what he did … he’s been impressive all year, and he continues to get better.

“There’s a good positive note for tonight.” And this was a guy who left hurt.

Rangers catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia was able to stretch his career-long hitting streak to eight games after going 0-for-2 against the 21-year-old Anderson.

“Early in the game, he threw his fastball a lot. From there, he started mixing it up a bit,” Saltalamacchia said. “He did a good job staying out of big innings.”

At one point, the A’s had outhit the Rangers nine to four and took a 3-1 lead into the sixth, an unlikely turn of events given that Texas came into the game with a slugging percentage 200 points better than Oakland (.511-.311) and had hit a major-league high 39 home runs to Oakland’s MLB-low 7. Yet the only homer of the night came from the Athletics’ Ryan Sweeney, his first of the season.

The Rangers’ three-run sixth inning began with Marlon Byrd hitting a grounder off Anderson to shortstop, where it went right through Orlando Cabrera. When the Rangers broke the 4-4 tie in the eighth, Hank Blalock scored the run after reaching on a two-base error by first baseman Jason Giambi.

Four of the Rangers’ five runs were unearned.

“That’s the first game where our defense let us down,” Geren said.

He then left to ponder who will be available on Wednesday, when Oakland sends 24-year-old lefty Josh Outman to the mound.

Maybe program sales will be brisk.