52-89 - Rangers come all the way back to bust Coliseum ghosts in Oakland

The Texas Rangers put eight runs on the board and the Oakland Athletics scored just six runs.

The Rangers trailed 6-2 coming into the eighth inning and didn’t have much going for them. They left the inning up 7-6 after stunning the A’s with five runs out of nowhere and with three of them coming with two outs.

With the A’s unable to score with their final six outs — and with some solo dong insurance from Leody Taveras — the Rangers have themselves a wild comeback win.

With it, Texas is now 8-10 against Oakland this season. That, of course, isn’t good. But it is the best that they have performed against an AL West team this season. Texas went 6-13 against Seattle, have gone 6-10 against Anaheim, and are 4-11 and against Houston so far.

This all means that the Rangers won’t have a winning record against any of their division rivals in 2021. But it also means that, with a chance to finish 9-10 against Oakland in a potential 100-loss season, we can feel like the Rangers potentially cost the A’s a Wild Card spot if they don’t overcome their one game deficit.

And then we can throw our heads back and laugh.

Player of the Game: Jonah Heim put a real dagger in the hearts of the Wild Card-trailing A’s with a two-run shot to cap off the comeback in the eighth that gave the Rangers the lead and eventually the win.

Heim, as you might recall, was the young MLB-ready player that the Rangers were essentially purchasing in the Elvis Andrus for Khris Davis trade.

That’s a real whoopsie, Billy Beane.

Up Next: The Rangers and A’s will close out this series as Texas finalizes the long West Coast road trip with LHP Taylor Hearn on the mound. Oakland will counter with RHP James Kaprielian whom the Rangers have faced at least 800 times this season.

Sunday’s first pitch from the Oakland Coliseum is scheduled for 3:07 pm CT once again.