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Young's go-ahead grand slam sends Rangers to win

Sep 17, 2007 - 1:29 AM By Ryan Leong PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

OAKLAND, California (Ticker) -- Michael Young hit an eighth-inning grand slam and a career-high seven RBI as the Texas Rangers salvaged the finale of a four-game series with a crazy 11-9 comeback victory over the Oakland Athletics on Sunday afternoon.

Having lost the first three games and the series to the Athletics, the last-place Rangers decided to vent their frustration against the Athletics against Nick Swisher, who homered in each of the first three games of this series.

After nearly getting hit by two pitches in his first at-bat against Rangers starter Vicente Padilla, the pitcher plunked Swisher and the two teams had a benches-clearing brawl. Once the dust cleared, home plate umpire Chuck Meriwether ejected Padilla and Swisher. Jamey Wright entered the game as Padilla's replacement.

"You always have a choice, but how many times can you let one team hit you in a row?" said Oakland manager Bob Geren of Swisher, who had been hit by pitches on Friday and Saturday as well. "You always have a choice, you can't say a man doesn't have a choice; everyone has choices."

Oakland second baseman Mark Ellis was more critical of Padilla.

"That guy's not even worth talking about," Ellis said. "He has a bad reputation around the league for doing that and Swish has been hit a couple days in a row now. Yesterday was obvious and I know it's not coming from the manager (Ron Washington). I know that for a fact, so today was as obvious as it was yesterday and there's nothing you can do."

Young's grand slam off A's reliever Andrew Brown (3-3) was the Rangers' eighth of the season, tying the franchise record and ending the Rangers' five-game losing streak.

"It would have been a tough one to lose, a four-game sweep would have been tough," Young said, "Especially (the fact that) its the end of the year against a division team and to salvage one here was nice."

Trailing, 8-7, Jarrod Saltalamacchia led off the eighth with an infield single before being replaced on the bases by Freddy Guzman. Travis Metcalf walked and Ian Kinsler sacrificed before Brad Wilkerson walked to load the bases, setting the stage for Young.

"I've only had a couple of at-bats against (Brown) but I know he has really good stuff," Young said. "He has a really good fastball and good off-speed stuff, so I just really tried to keep simplifying my approach and see if I can get something to hit and I put a nice swing on it."

John Rheinecker (3-2) pitched 2 2/3 innings in relief to pick up the win. C.J. Wilson bridged the two-out gap to Joaquin Benoit, who recorded the final four outs of the game for his fifth save in nine chances.

Mark Ellis hit a two-run homer with three RBI and Kurt Suzuki had a pair of run-scoring doubles for the Athletics, who failed to complete their first four-game sweep in over two years.

"We've had some slugfests with them," Ellis said. "But the years I've been here, we haven't had many games like this because our pitching generally shuts everyone down."