Athletics bring late cheer to a poor season

Daniel Mengden struck out eight, Khris Davis hit his career-best 43rd homer and the lastplace Oakland Athletics ended the season with a 5-2 win at Texas on Sunday.

The Athletics (75-87) finished at the bottom of the AL West for the third consecutive season, a franchise first, but won six more games than last season thanks to 17 victories in their last 24 games. Manager Bob Melvin even got a contract extension this week, adding a year through 2019.

Texas didn’t have a base runner against Mengden (3-2) until Adrian Beltre’s 3,048th career hit, a single leading off the fifth. Mengden walked one and allowed only four singles in his seven innings. Blake Treinen worked the ninth for his 16th save in 21 chances.

Slip from last year

After winning the AL West title the past two seasons, the Rangers (78-84) slipped from 95 wins last year.

Oakland went ahead to stay after four consecutive hits to open the third off Cole Hamels (11-6). Dustin Garneau and Marcus Semien had singles before Matt Chapman’s RBI double. Jed Lowrie followed with his 49th double, extending his single-season team record while driving in two runs.

Davis, already only the second A’s player other than Jimmie Fox (1932-34) with consecutive 40-homer seasons, went deep in the eighth. Davis hit 42 homers last season.

The Rangers didn’t score until Nomar Mazara’s tworun single in the eighth, giving him 101 RBIs. Beltre played for the first time since Tuesday, the night the Rangers were eliminated from wild-card contention.

Sunday’s games:

Arizona Milwaukee Atlanta TAMPA BAY CLEVELAND MINNESOTA LA Dodgers LA ANGELS Houston PHILADELPHIA Oakland SAN FR’ISCO Toronto 14 6 8 6 3 5 6 6 4 11 5 5 2 KANSAS CY 2 ST. LOUIS 1 MIAMI 5 Baltimore 0 Chi W. Sox 1 Detroit 1 COLORADO 3 Seattle 2 BOSTON 3 NY Mets 0 TEXAS 2 San Diego 4 NY YANKEES 1