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Post-Game Show: A’s 4, Rangers 0

•  Box score 

Story of the Game

Another threat of rain on Wednesday night, and a scoring drought of biblical proportions continued below at Rangers Ballpark with a one-hit shutout. Only David Murphy’s solo home run on Tuesday night prevented the current skid from being the worst scoreless streak in club history – one run in 37 innings that began before the three consecutive losses to the Sweepin’ A’s.

The Angels come in for the “red out” weekend. Their lead in the A.L. West remains at six games going into their series finale at Fenway on Thursday night. Maybe Michael Young will return. But not Josh Hamilton, who on Wednesday shut down baseball-related activities (like hitting off a tee) from his workouts because of tightness in his right glute. What looked for months like a heavyweight confrontation now has the appearance of desperation for the home team. Marlon Byrd, whose second-inning single was the team’s only hit, has already tried his best Rockne speech: “I told the guys Oakland 2002, Colorado ’07. It’s been done before. The Phillies when they caught the Mets. We have plenty of fight left in us.”

Manager Ron Washington often mentions playing the game the right way. There appeared to be cracks in that approach on Wednesday night, maybe players trying too hard. After Byrd’s leadoff single in the second and a walk to Ian Kinsler, Nelson Cruz tried to bunt his way on. Byrd was thrown out at third, and Chris Davis and Taylor Teagarden followed with strikeouts. Said Washington: “I certainly didn’t give a bunt. Nobody out. Runners on first and second. Nelson Cruz up there. Thirty-two bombs.” In the Oakland eighth, LF David Murphy had Rajai Davis trapped between second and third. Murphy threw behind him, and Davis reached third.

Byrd said neither Cruz’s bunt nor Murphy’s throw were indications of players pressing: “That has nothing to do with anything. At all.”

The Rangers reached base only three times – the Byrd single and two walks to Kinsler (hitless in his last 15 at-bats). The three baserunners equaled a season low from the May 19 one-hitter thrown by Detroit’s Dontrelle Willis and four relievers. The Rangers were also one-hit on June 28 by San Diego’s Chad Gaudin and Heath Bell.

“You figure somebody in the lineup’s getting it done even if we went cold,” Washington said. “Not the whole lineup.”

Said Kinsler: “We just need to relax and be ready for the next game. Just bad timing. There’s really nothing I can say.”

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The Depot: Rangers-A’s Live In-Game Blog, Etc.

ARLINGTON - The tarp is on the field, and an afternoon drizzle is glistening off it because the lights are already on beneath the overcast. So what’s new? Until first pitch, which should go off on time, Josh Hamilton is backing off  baseball-related drills for the next couple of days and won’t return anytime soon, Jarrod Saltalamacchia will have surgery on Monday, manager Ron Washington told the team after Tuesday night’s loss that they’re the same group that got into playoff contention and batting coach Rudy Jaramillo had a sitdown with all of the hitters on Wednesday afternoon.

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Wednesday Rangers-A’s Home Run Pool

Here’s the lineup that will face Oakland RHP Trevor Cahill (8-12, 4.74 ERA):

DH Julio Borbon; SS Elvis Andrus; LF  David Murphy, CF Marlon Byrd; 2B Ian Kinsler; RF Nelson Cruz; 1B Chris Davis; C Taylor Teagarden; 3B Omar Vizquel

According to the Athletics’ page on MLB.com, Cahill will be on an 80-pitch limit in this, his season finale. The 21-year-old rookie has allowed 26 home runs this season, a club record for rookies.

Linkin’ Park: Lurking Around The Web For You

After five and a half months of baseball seemed to be culminating in a two-week stretch run for their first playoff bid in a decade, the Rangers’ season has come unraveled in just four days. Since Saturday, Texas is 1-4, including three straight losses in which they’ve scored only one total run. They’ve dropped from 2 to 5.5 games back in the wild card race, and while they’ve only lost half a game on the Angels in the division, they’ve failed to make up ground during a rare cold streak for Los Angeles.

In other words, if the Rangers season isn’t quite dead yet, it’s on life support.

Some pundits have called out the fans for not supporting the team in larger numbers in Arlington. Most others are blaming an ownership that, despite its best efforts to dispel the rumors, is completely broke. Tom Hicks insists that MLB is not controlling the team’s finances, but it still appears as though things will get worse before they get better even if the Rangers are stocked with baseball’s most prized commodity — cheap, controllable talent.

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Heaven Help Us: Rangers Overlooked a Sign from Above by Playing Weekend Series against Seattle

A seemingly eternally-cursed franchise received a bit of heaven-sent help last week.

The Rangers, true to their star-crossed history, ignored it. And you know what they say: It’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature.

When this season is officially put away for the winter, the ultimate reason it will be the 10th consecutive season without a playoff appearance is going to sting a lot. Like hard raindrops in a stiff, cold wind. It will sting not because of anything the Rangers did on the field. It very likely will be because of what they did to the field. In an effort to preserve the integrity of the home schedule – and to keep the gate money – the Rangers implored the hard-working grounds crew to somehow got the field playable enough for three games with Seattle on a weekend when nearly 9.5 inches of rain fell on Arlington. That they did is a testament to the grounds crew. That the Rangers played, though, is a testament to the business of baseball and nothing else.

The Rangers lost two of those three games and have been sleep-walking ever since. If they aren’t careful, they are about to step right off a cliff and out of what remains of the AL playoff races. Now, some four days after the flood, it’s at least worth considering whether the Rangers simply should have simply accepted the watery gift they received as a blessing and played the three games in Seattle at the end of the season when their roster was back at full strength.

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Rangers Turn to All-Purpose Pitcher Dustin Nippert

ARLINGTON – Wednesday dawned as the darkest day of the Rangers’ season to date, at least mathematically. Never further from a post-season invitation, and only 18 more chances to alter that.

With so much at stake in Wednesday night’s series finale against Oakland, circumstances again dictate the Rangers hand the ball to maybe their least likely contributor this season. Dustin Nippert’s name isn’t included when discussing top of the rotation starters or closers or gems for the future. The 28-year-old didn’t pitch for the Rangers until July 7, activated from the 60-day disabled list following a back injury that doctors struggled to identify and cure. Since then, he has become the staff’s 6-foot-8 version of duct tape – eating innings when necessary, starting on a day’s notice if needed.

Wednesday night’s start figures to be his most important outing of the season. “I don’t really want to think about it like that,” Nippert said Tuesday. “They need a starter, and they think I can do the job.”

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Wednesday NFL Stuff…And Baylor?

Wednesdays are a bit of a reset day on the NFL beat, so let me show you something we did over at the old blog and update those numbers.

There are some standards that NFL broadcasters are always saying that I always like to challenge just to see if they are telling the truth. One in particular started back in the 1990s when the talking heads used to tell us that if Emmitt Smith had 20 carries then the Cowboys always won. I could never appreciate that stat (even if it was true) because I thought there was no correlation between that and winning. If you want to say when Emmitt gets 100 yards, I would believe it. Getting 100 yards has all sorts of winning attributes, but merely calling running plays would not lead to winning unless they were effective. The number of carries is obviously not as important as what he does with them. Otherwise, couldn’t they hand him the ball on the first 20 plays, he takes a knee, loses 40 yards in the process, and the Cowboys win? It just didn’t compute to me.

Am I crazy?

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Race Day: Looking at the A.L. Playoff Races

About the Wild Card Race

Boston: In the middle of September, RHP Daisuke Matsuzaka lowered his ERA from 8.23 to 7.02, made his first quality start of the season and received a standing ovation. In his first big-league outing since June 19, he returned from shoulder problems on Tuesday night to beat the Angels throwing 93 pitches. He allowed only three hits and three walks and put himself in position to be Boston’s No. 4 starter in the post-season. The Red Sox won despite missing 1B-3B Kevin Youkilis (bad back, return date unknown) and C-1B Victor Martinez (family issue in Cleveland, return date unknown).

On Wednesday night, RHP Paul Byrd (1-1, 6.08) will make his fourth start since coming out of retirement. He has had two good outings and one stinker, 13.1 innings with nine earned runs and 19 hits. In nine career starts against the Angels, he’s 4-2 with a 4.94 ERA. 2B Dustin Pedroia is hitting .385 during a seven-game hitting streak. DH David Ortiz has a six-game streak during which he has hit .529. His eighth-inning home run made him the all-time DH leader with 270.

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