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OAKLAND — First baseman Matt Olson came into Saturday as the only A’s player to appear in all of the team’s 142 games.
Even though Olson wasn’t in the starting lineup for the second game of Oakland’s series with the Texas Rangers at the Coliseum, manager Bob Melvin figured there was a good chance his regular first baseman would see the field for consecutive game No. 143.
Olson came in as a defensive replacement in the seventh and to lead off the eighth, went the opposite way for his career-best 25th home run of the season to help the A’s pick up a wild 8-6 win over the Rangers before an announced crowd of 20,504.
Mark Canha started Saturday at first base. But in the eighth, Olson, one pitch after he attempted to bunt against the shift to get on base, hammered a changeup from Chris Martin over the left field fence for a one-run Oakland lead.
“He’s always ready to play. He wants to play every day,” Melvin said of Olson. “Pretty impactful when he came into the game today, that’s for sure.”
Matt Chapman added an RBI double for some insurance later in the eighth, as the A’s stayed within 3 1/2 games of the Houston Astros for first place in the American League West.
Oakland, which also got home runs from Khris Davis and Chad Pinder, closes out its series with the Rangers on Sunday, then begins a six-game road trip on Tuesday in Baltimore.
Before Saturday, Olson had been 9-for-41 at the plate in his last 12 games with five runs, seven RBI, five walks and 15 strikeouts. Melvin said before the game that he sometimes gets “a little bit of a sideways glance from (Olson) when he’s not in the lineup to start.”
“I want to be in the lineup every day and I think everybody in this room does,” Olson said after the game. “I don’t want it to seem like he said I’m looking at him sideways like it’s a bad thing. I wasn’t faulting him. But I’m competitor and I want to be in there every day, and was just ready for whenever I was going to get in there.”
As far as Olson going opposite field for the home run, Melvin said, “If you watch him take batting practice right now, that’s kind of where his strength is. He’s got as much pull power as anybody in the American League, but there are times when you have to make an adjustment, and he has recently.
“He’s a clear thinker, he’s a pretty smart guy, so that’s kind of where his path is right now.”
The A’s now have a record of 62-0 this season when they enter the seventh inning of a game with a lead.
As Saturday’s game showed, though, they haven’t all been easy. The A’s were up by two with one out in the eighth when Adrian Beltre smacked a two-run homer to left off reliever Fernando Rodney to tie the game 6-6.
Ryan Buchter earned his fourth win of the year with the A’s, giving Oakland’s bullpen its 37th victory of the season, breaking an Oakland record that had been standing since 1997. Blake Treinen picked up his 37th save.
Ramón Laureano made another memorable play in center field, tracking down and crashing against the fence to rob Adrian Beltre of extra bases and end the top of the fourth inning.
“Off the bat, you just hope it doesn’t go out,” Melvin said. “Next thing you know, he’s crashing into the wall and it wouldn’t surprise you if the wall tipped over as hard as he plays.”
But all Laureano could do after Jurickson Profar made hard contact to lead off the fifth was stand and watch.
Profar’s no-doubter to right field was one of two home runs allowed by starter Edwin Jackson, who lasted just three-plus innings, his shortest outing since he was selected by Oakland out of Nashville in late June.
Jackson, who allowed a second inning homer to Beltre, was 4-2 in his first nine starts with the A’s, but Saturday’s game marked the third time in four starts he’s gone 4 2/3 innings or less.
Going into Saturday, Jackson has started against Texas nine times, going 2-4 with a 4.85 ERA. His last win against the Rangers was May 21, 2009 when he was with Detroit.
“I feel like the (Rangers), all in all, they’ve had my number. I wanted to go out today and change that up a little bit, but they’re still getting work done,” Jackson said. “I think I put myself in position to have different results, but it’s just a matter of focus and execution, which I wasn’t doing in the third inning today.”
