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Rangers send Athletics to ninth straight loss

Jul 18, 2007 - 6:29 AM OAKLAND, California (Ticker) -- The Oakland Athletics' season keeps getting worse.

Michael Young went 5-for-5 and had three RBI to lead the Texas Rangers to an 11-4 rout of the Athletics on Tuesday night, sending Oakland to its ninth straight loss.

It is the Athletics' longest losing streak since 1998, when they also lost nine in a row.

"As far as I'm concerned, any team that has that kind of pitching has a shot," Young said. "They've had a couple of tough stretches, but I'm sure they'll find a way the second half to get things going. Traditionally, they're a second-half team."

Kenny Lofton added two hits and scored two runs for the Rangers, who have now taken five of their last eight against the Athletics.

"We're definitely fighting an uphill battle," Oakland manager Bob Geren said. "We had a good talk today with the team and everybody is trying to push forward and climb out of this thing collectively."

The six consecutive losses since the All-Star break are also the most in Oakland history, besting two five-game stretches in 1982 and 1997.

"A lot of us around here are not used to losing," A's second baseman Mark Ellis said. "It's a tough thing that we're going through right now. We've had stretches where we have lost a number of games in a row, but nothing I remember as this bad."

Texas struck early against Athletics starter Chad Gaudin (8-5) when Lofton legged out a triple to left-center field to lead off the game and scored on Young's double to right for a 1-0 lead.

The Rangers broke the game open in the seventh inning. With Texas leading, 6-4, A's reliever Joe Kennedy fielded Ramon Vazquez's sacrifice bunt attempt and attempted to get the force at third. Instead, he threw the ball into left field, allowing two runs to score for an 8-4 bulge.

"They kept coming," Rangers manager Ron Washington said. "We ran the basepaths extremely well. We were very aggressive, swinging the bat, putting the ball in play. We did a little bit of everything."

Gaudin, who entered with the seventh-lowest ERA in the American league (3.18), allowed six runs and eight hits in six innings while walking a career-high six batters.

"It's frustrating," Gaudin said. "We're going through a tough situation. Right now we're struggling, and guys are making it a point to be real positive. Things aren't going our way right now. We just have to keep battling and keep our heads up every day."

Texas starter Robinson Tejeda, who was recalled from Class AAA Oklahoma prior to the game, yielded three runs and four hits while walking six and striking out two.

Willie Eyre (3-3), the second of four Texas pitchers, work two-thirds of an inning for the win. Ron Mahay allowed two hits over the final three innings to record his first save.

Oakland's Jack Cust belted a two-run blast - his 16th - in the fifth inning to even the scoring at 3-3.

The slumping Cust was just 2-for-23 with no RBI over his last eight games prior to the blast. The slugger has belted a team-leading 16 home runs since being selected from Class AAA Sacramento on May 4.

The Athletics entered having scored three runs or fewer in each of their last 11 games, which is also the longest such streak in Oakland history.

The defeat kept Oakland in third place in the AL West and dropped the team a season-high 12 games behind the first-place Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.