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 Gray pitched a three-hit shutout, leading the Athletics to a 4-0
victory over the Texas Rangers and ace right-hander Yu Darvish on
Monday night.
The shutout was the first of Gray's major league career, which began
last July. The 24-year-old was making his 16th career start.
Gray (4-1) struck out six, walked one and allowed only two runners
to reach scoring position. He sent Texas to its first shutout loss
this season. The Rangers entered the game as one of three teams that
had yet to be shut out.
"More than anything it was a game we needed to win," Gray said. "I
don't think it would have matter if we won 1-0, 4-0 or 10-9, as long
as we won was all that mattered."
A's third baseman Josh Donaldson hit a two-run single in the third
inning, and right fielder Josh Reddick and first baseman Daric
Barton each had an RBI in Oakland's two-run fourth. Reddick finished
with three hits, and catcher John Jaso had two.
"Pitching makes it difficult for anyone," Rangers manager Ron
Washington said. "Oakland has pitching. Gray was pretty good
tonight."
Darvish (1-1) was tagged with the loss in the shortest outing of his
Texas career. He worked 3 1/3 innings and gave up four runs on six
hits and two walks while striking out four.
The quick hook ended Darvish's club record of consecutive starts of
five or more innings at 56. That represented the third-longest
active streak in the majors, behind the streaks of the Philadelphia
Phillies' Cole Hamels and the Los Angeles Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw.
Darvish's shortest outing before Monday was four innings against the
Seattle Mariners on May 21, 2012.
Darvish fell to 1-7 with a 4.73 ERA in nine career starts against
Oakland.
"They have a really good game plan against me," Darvish said.
"Obviously I was disappointed to throw only three-plus innings, but
this is something that happens to any pitcher. What happened,
happened. I don't want to dwell on it."
A's manager Bob Melvin said, "We just try to make him work early on
and hopefully get his pitch count up. You're usually not going to
knock him out of the game, so the next best thing is get his pitch
count up, score a few runs and hopefully get him out of the game
sooner than later."
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Center fielder Leonys Martin, catcher Robinson Chirinos and right
fielder Alex Rios all had hits for Texas. Chirinos received a
charitable call by the official scorer on an infield single that
just as easily could have been ruled an error on shortstop Jed
Lowrie.
Gray threw an efficient 108 pitches (73 strikes) while avenging a
3-0 loss last week to Texas, which swept three games from the A's.
He dropped his ERA to 1.76.
Gray walked Rangers leadoff hitter Michael Choice to start the
game, but he used one of a number of effective sliders to induce an
inning-ending double play out of Texas first baseman Prince Fielder.
"We pounded fastballs in early in the game," Gray said. "They were
hitting it into the ground."
Said Melvin: "After (the walk), it was as well a pitched game as
I've seen in a while."
NOTES: LPGA golfer Angela Stanford of Fort Worth, Texas, threw out
the game's ceremonial first pitch. The LPGA takes a swing through
area for the North Texas Shootout starting Thursday at Las Colinas
Country Club in Irving. ... Texas and Oakland entered the game among
four teams tied for the third-best record in baseball at 15-10.
Milwaukee was tops at 18-7, followed by Atlanta at 17-7. ... A's LF
Brandon Moss was ruled out, 2-3, on a review at Texas manager Ron
Washington's request in the third inning. The replay showed that
Rangers 1B Prince Fielder blocked Moss' foot as the batter-runner
tried to touch the base. The game was delayed 2 minutes, 16 seconds
for the review. Two other plays were reviewed, one confirming that
A's RF Josh Reddick beat Texas RHP Nick Martinez's pickoff attempt
at first in the eighth inning. The other overturned a call by plate
umpire Jeff Nelson, who ruled Reddick safe on his attempt to get
back to first on a fly out to center in the same inning. The game
was delayed 1:47 and 1:35 on the Reddick replays.
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