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Wright dazzles as Rangers hand A's eighth straight loss

Jul 17, 2007 - 6:29 AM OAKLAND, California (Ticker) -- Jamey Wright made sure he wasn't the pitcher that the Oakland Athletics get over the hump on.

Wright supplied a stellar performance on the hill and Jerry Hairston Jr. had two RBI as the Texas Rangers posted a 4-1 triumph over the reeling Athletics in Monday's series opener.

Wright (3-2) yielded just four hits with three walks and two strikeouts in a season-high seven innings to hand the A's their eighth consecutive setback.

"I felt strong, that's for sure, stronger than I did before the break so that's a good thing," Wright said. "I'm doing what I was doing before, good sinker, real good cutter, make it go both ways and let the movement get the guys out. I got lucky quite a few times too."

It was Wright's first pair of back-to-back wins since rolling off three straight from May 11-22, 2006 while with the San Francisco Giants.

"Some balls were right at guys," Wright said. "The few balls I left up got popped up but its good to get lucky every now and then too."

Texas opened the scoring in the fourth inning, when Hairston battled through a 12-pitch at-bat, fouling off seven straight pitches before stroking a two-run double off the left-center wall against rookie Dallas Braden for a 2-0 edge.

"It was a great at-bat," Rangers manager Ron Washington said. "(Braden) tried to sneak a fastball inside on him and he pulled his hands in very well and got it over Shannon Stewart's head and Gerald (Laird) blazed around the bags from first to home."

Byrd added to the Rangers cushion in the next frame with his own two-run double off Braden (1-4), who was recalled earlier from Class AAA Sacramento.

"That's the story is one pitch here, two pitches there and mostly, they're coming at crucial spots in the game with guys on base," Braden said. "Like the Hairston at-bat, two outs and guys on and it didn't work out for me, made a mistake and it costs us."

Rangers reliever Frank Francisco allowed two runners in the ninth, but closer Eric Gagne entered to get the final three outs en route to earning his 14th save.

In his first career outings against Texas, Braden allowed four runs and eight hits with seven strikeouts in a season-tying six innings.

"Anytime you're putting pressure on your offense to have to score more runs than they really need to, with the starting staff and the bullpen we have, these guys are stingy and you want to become part of that cohesive unit and if anything its a building block," Braden said.

The Athletics had a chance to get on the scoreboard in the seventh with runners on second and third, but Wright got Mark Ellis to fly out and fanned Marco Scutaro to end the threat.

Oakland's offense has gone dormant, scoring just three runs or less in each of its last 11 games. The A's have not endured of this kind since going 12 games long from September 12-24, 1967, when franchise was located in Kansas City.

"We haven't been scoring and the bottom line is we have to do something offensively to try to give our pitchers something to work with," Stewart said. "Its just a tough stretch and there's no timely hitting."

"We made a couple of mistakes out there and they capitalized or they hit bloopers and then they get the big inning. We just can't get it going but baseball's like that. You go in your little cycles and maybe (Tuesday) it'll turn for us."