Harden Nearly Perfect in Win

Rich Harden tried to make small talk between innings and nobody would cooperate.

He asked rookie Joe Blanton about his truck and received a one-word response. Nobody dared jinx what Harden had going on the mound.

Harden carried a perfect game into the eighth inning Thursday night, finishing with a masterful two-hitter in the Oakland Athletics’ 6-0 victory over the Texas Rangers.

“Yeah, I’d say that was probably the best I’ve felt,” Harden said. “Complete games are pretty rare for me. I don’t think I threw one slider -- all changeups and splits.”

And what changeups those were: One was clocked at 91 mph and another at 90.

He threw a 99-mph fastball in the first inning.

“It was unbelievable,” Blanton said.

“That’s one of the best performances I’ve ever seen.”

Harden (6-4) was five outs from the 18th perfect game in major league history when Alfonso Soriano hit a clean, broken-bat single to center.

It was the closest a big league pitcher has come to a no-hitter this season.

“I was a little disappointed, but I still had a game to pitch,” Harden said. “That’s how baseball works. It was pretty cool the way the fans were into it. It got me pumped up a few times.”

The crowd gave him a standing ovation, and he quickly recovered. He gave up a two-out single to David Dellucci in the ninth before retiring Michael Young on a groundout to complete his first career shutout. Harden threw 61 of his 81 pitches for strikes in a game that lasted just 2 hours, 11 minutes.

And one of those pitches didn’t even leave his hand. A ball was called when he put his bare hand to his mouth on the mound.

“I got a base hit to see if my team could wake up,” Soriano said. “He had a good rhythm all night. When we finally got a hit, it was a little late.”

Eric Chavez homered and Scott Hatteberg doubled, singled and scored twice in the A’s fourth straight victory.