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Cust home run lifts Athletics over Rangers

May 5, 2008 - 1:34 AM By Ryan Leong PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

OAKLAND, California (Ticker) -- The Oakland Athletics averted a three-game sweep with one swing of Jack Cust's bat.

Cust belted a two-run homer in the bottom of the seventh inning to lift the Athletics to a 3-1 win over the Texas Rangers on Sunday.

Greg Smith was impressive for Oakland. The rookie lefthander pitched six innings, allowing only three hits and one run with a career-high 10 strikeouts.

"I was just locating a lot of pitches and locating with two strikes, not trying to do too much and I just got a bunch of K's today," Smith said. "They seemed to be swinging early against Chad (Gaudin) and Joe (Blanton, Oakland's previous two starters). So I threw a quality first pitch, and then later in the count I was mixing some off-speed and really locating and they just kind of happened."

Texas manager Ron Washington was not so complimentary of Smith's performance.

"I have no comment on that, he's just a left-handed pitcher and I'm not going to say he was Cy Young," Washington said. "He did a pretty good job in the middle of my order. The guy keeps his team in the ball-game but for me to say he's Cy Young ... uh-uh."

Santiago Casilla (1-0) pitched one inning for the win and Huston Street worked around a two-out double in the ninth for his ninth save.

Rangers starter Scott Feldman (0-1) pitched 6 1/3 innings, allowing three runs, one walk and five strikeouts but took the loss. He had a stretch in which he retired 12 of 13.

"I wish I could've kept throwing zeros up there," Feldman said. "You want to win the game so it's one of those things where overall I'm happy with it but I wish we could've come out on top."

Rookie German Duran hit his first major league home run, a long drive to left to lead off the third inning against Smith.

Oakland has struggled to score runs since a 15-8 blowout of the Los Angles Angels on Thursday, when the A's pounded out a season-high 20 hits. Since then, the A's have scored only nine runs in three contests.

The A's had runners at first and second with singles from Frank Thomas and Cust in the second inning before Feldman retired the next three batters.

Oakland got a huge break in the seventh inning when Thomas reached on a double that was lost in the sun by center fielder Josh Hamilton.

"It went up, I saw it and when it was coming down I didn't," Hamilton said. "It's pretty easy but then again, you can't hear anything out there with the fans screaming. To the left fielder it looked like I was camped under it and so he couldn't read whether or not to come over and take it because he couldn't hear anything.

"It's one of those things that happen. It's unfortunate because Feldman pitched his (butt) off."

Cust took advantage of the opportunity by blasting an opposite-field home run to give the A's a 2-1 lead.

"It was huge," Cust said. "I saw the ball up in the air and this is a tough place to play in the outfield and you could tell he lost it up in the sun. When it was halfway up there, you could tell he was having a hard time seeing the ball.

"At that point I was just getting pumped up myself because I've been feeling good at the plate and I was excited to be able to come up with a 1-0 game with a runner on second base and try and drive him in so obviously that's big."

With one out, Bobby Crosby doubled to left and scored on a single by Jack Hannahan.

Texas failed to complete its first three-game sweep at Oakland since May 2-4, 2005.

In commemoration of the A's 40th year in Oakland, both teams wore throwback uniforms from 1968.