Rangers top A’s, 8-6

OAKLAND, Calif. The Oakland A’s had a chance to be an impediment to Texas on the Rangers’ road to the playoffs Tuesday. It didn’t happen.

Instead, Texas scored an 8-6 win over the A’s and increased its lead in the American League West to two games over Houston with the Astros 4-3 losers to the Angels Tuesday.

Oakland, which was mathematically eliminated from the West race over the weekend after having been in the postseason three consecutive seasons, has a 64-87 record with 11 games left.

Every other AL team has at least 70 wins, meaning the A’s are in danger of locking down the worst record in the league during this final homestand after having had the best record in baseball in spring training at 22-11.

Lefty Sean Nolin’s fourth start of what he has to figure is an audition for the 2016 rotation began well, but faltered.

A game-opening walk to Delino DeShields led to a first-inning Texas run, but that’s all the Rangers got through four innings. In the fifth, however, a walk, a single and a couple of sacrifice flies cut into the A’s lead, leaving it at 4-3.

An inning later longtime A’s killer Mitch Moreland knocked Nolin out of the game with a two-run homer, his 14th career bomb off Oakland pitching. In 11 games this year he has four homers and a dozen RBI off the A’s.

Nolin gave way to Drew Pomeranz, who gave up the lead on a single, a couple of bunts (one of those an error) and yet another sacrifice fly, this one from DeShields.

Two more runs came home against the bullpen in the eighth, the last of them on the Rangers’ fourth sacrifice fly.

Down 1-0 early, the A’s struck for three runs to take the lead in the second, beginning with a walk to Josh Reddick. That was followed by back-to-back triples from Jake Smolinski and Marcus Semien, good for on run, then a two-out single from Mark Canha for a 3-1 lead.

The triples were the 39th and 40th of the season for the A’s, matching the Oakland record set in 1968, the club’s first in the Coliseum.

Oakland added one in the third with an RBI grounder from Smolinski and in the fifth when Reddick’s pop fly to left was dropped by the Rangers’ Mike Napoli, moving the Oakland advantage to 5-3. The A’s had just two more base runners until a Canha double and Danny Valencia single produced a final run in the ninth.

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