Rangers 3, A’s 2: Oakland opens a series in Arlington with another loss to lastplace Texas.

ARLINGTON, Texas — The bases sat full for Matt Olson. Josh Sborz fired a fastball that bisected the strike zone. Olson sent it 109.4 mph off his bat toward right field. Nick Solak, 15 feet deep on the grass in a shift, was right there. The ball reached Texas’ second baseman on one hop.

Ninety feet of basepath for the A’s right now feels farther. Their offense is producing chances to score. The timely hit is proving more elusive. Seven more A’s runners were stranded on Friday in a 32 loss to the Rangers. Factors varied but bred a familiar result.

Pitching is left to walk a thin margin. The A’s have lost 13 of 19 games. In four of those six wins, their pitchers allowed two or fewer runs. Starter Cole Irvin took a nohitter into the sixth inning Friday. Five batters later, he was in line for a loss.

“They’ve given us a chance to win games and the starters have gone deep into games,” Olson said. “The offense has left them out to dry here and there, for sure. And we just are struggling to find a way to win games right now, which is obviously not ideal.

“Nobody’s panicking around here. We know we’ve got a solid squad. We’ve got (Mark) Canha and (Chad) Pinder out now, Mitch (Moreland), we’re just kind of treading water right now and try to come out and win this series the next few days, have a little AllStar break, hit the reset button and have the second half that we normally do.”

There was hard luck early. Elvis Andrus and Seth Brown lined into double plays in the first two innings against Texas starter Jordan Lyles. Brown, up with runners on first and third, hit a liner straight at first baseman Andy Ibáñez, who stepped on the bag.

In the fourth, Andrus singled and Olson doubled with no outs. Matt Chapman popped out, but Jed Lowrie walked to load the bases. Sean Murphy’s brokenbat groundout, too slow for a play at home, produced the A’s lone run of the inning. Lyles struck out Brown to escape.

Lyles allowed seven hits and a walk through six innings but just two runs. Chapman legged a twoout double in the sixth and Lowrie singled to score him. Irvin had not allowed a hit to that point. Two hitbypitches comprised Texas’ offense. His outing turned quickly in the sixth.

Eli White led off the inning with an infield single, Charlie Culberson singled and Irvin hit Isiah KinerFalefa to load the bases with no outs. Ibáñez lined a single up the middle to score one. Manager Bob Melvin removed Irvin at 86 pitches.

“It came down to execution and the biggest thing is I looked up right after giving up that hit (to White) and realized why everyone was cheering,” Irvin said. “I was pretty locked in those first five innings and I wasn’t looking up. I let that one get away from us. … I need to bear down and get back to creating a rhythm there. That’s what it came down to was just I lost my rhythm.”

Sergio Romo inherited a mess. Adolis Garcia, the Rangers’ RBI leader and AllStar rookie, did not let him settle in. Garcia lined Romo’s first pitch, a slider, for a tworun single. Romo escaped the inning without further damage.

“That should give us some momentum coming back in the dugout,” Melvin said, “and we just couldn’t get a big hit.”

Olson’s wellstruck groundout ended the seventh. Oakland’s last six hitters went down in order. Its bench is thin. Melvin pinchhit Frank Schwindel for Brown against a lefthander in the seventh and Skye Bolt replaced Brown in left field. That left just backup catcher Aramis Garcia and infielder Jacob Wilson, still seeking his MLB debut, on the bench. Ian Kennedy, the Rangers’ closer, needed just eight pitches to retire Bolt, Stephen Piscotty and Tony Kemp in the ninth.

The A’s need to win their final two games in Texas to prevent going without a series win seven consecutive times.