Glenn Otto outpitched former high school teammate Adam Oller and the Texas Rangers scored five times in the second inning en route to an 8-1 victory over the host Oakland Athletics in the opener of a three-game series Friday night.
Nathaniel Lowe and Andy Ibanez homered as part of a nine-hit attack as the Rangers won a second straight game after having dropped five in a row.
Promoted from Triple-A earlier in the day, Otto (1-0) stifled the A’s in just his seventh major league start, limiting the hosts to one run and two hits in five innings.
Matt Moore, John King and Garrett Richards held Oakland hitless over the final four innings, with Richards working a 1-2-3 ninth after the Rangers had tacked on three insurance runs in the top of the inning on a Jonah Heim RBI single, a two-out error by A’s first baseman Seth Brown and a Ryan Castellani wild pitch.
Otto walked one and struck out five in getting the better of Oller (0-2) in a duel of 2014 graduates of Concordia Lutheran High near Houston.
Lowe’s homer, his first of the season, came after Adolis Garcia had led off the second with an infield single.
One out later, Ibanez belted his first homer of the year, a solo shot that made it 3-0.
The A’s hadn’t allowed a home run since last Saturday at Toronto, a stretch of five games that included a 3-1 series win at home over the Baltimore Orioles earlier this week.
The Rangers added two more runs before inning’s end on a walk, a double by Heim, an RBI single by Brad Miller and a sacrifice fly by Marcus Semien.
Oller went on to complete five innings, charged with five runs on five hits. He walked two and struck out two.
Lowe and Heim had two hits apiece, while Ibanez and Heim each scored twice for the Rangers, who were continuing a six-game trip that began with two losses in three games at Seattle.
The A’s only run in this one was produced by back-to-back doubles by Sean Murphy and Brown with two outs in the fourth inning.
–Field Level Media
