Pitchers take the night off in Texas

A’s blew 8-run lead in frustrating loss to Rangers

The A’s say they resent being compared to a softball team. The joke, they say, about their needing a keg at second base isn’t funny anymore.

Well, maybe it’s not a joke at all, fellas. And maybe it’s the pitchers and not the hitters who should be compared to D-league beerchuggers. The A’s and Texas Rangers weren’t throwing the ball to the plate underhanded at 6 mph Friday night, but a combined output of 37 hits and 33 runs, there wasn’t much proof to the contrary.

And it would all be a funny, quirky little game had the A’s not blown a 15-7 lead and lost 17-16.

“Maybe now you will all believe me when I say that, in this day and age, no lead is safe,” A’s manager Art Howe said. “This one wasn’t pretty. The offense was outstanding, we just didn’t pitch. No one did.”

It was as if the teams were playing softball at Twin Creeks in Sunnyvale. The only thing that was missing was a courtesy runner.

“You just don’t do that. I don’t care how much fight you’ve got,” Rangers manager Johnny Oates said. “You don’t come back from a deficit like that. I guess this is proof that you can.”

And while Oates and Howe alternated frustrated trips to the mound, the records kept falling:

• It was the highest-scoring game in Oakland franchise history.

• The game marked the first time 18 players scored in a game since June 29, 1950, when 10 Boston Red Sox and eight Philadelphia A’s scored. The major league record is 22 players scoring in a game.

• It was the first time in

American League history all 18 starters scored in a game.

• The 33 runs are the most scored in a major league game this season.

• The 16 runs were the most the Rangers have given up in a victory.

The A’s hit five home runs, one each in innings four through eight. Frank Menechino, Ramon Hernandez, Jeremy Giambi, Adam Piatt and Terrence Long all bashed. Every starter had a hit. Strangely, only the No. 3 and 4 hitters, Jason Giambi and Olmedo Saenz, didn’t drive in a run.

The A’s trailed 5-0 in the second thanks to underwhelming pitching by Mark Mulder.

“Pitching? If that’s what you want to call it,” Mulder said. “I walked too many guys. You can’t win doing what I did. If you told me we’d score 16 runs and lose, I would have said ‘no way.’”

Mulder was matched only by Darren Oliver’s horrifying night. Before Oliver could say, “pitcher of record,” he blew a five-run cushion but left leading 7-5.

But Oliver, bathing in team victory, got to smile and be clever.

“It was like the Cowboys and Raiders out there,” he said.

If Rangers reliever Matt Perisho has had a worse time, it is hard to fathom what happened on that night. Perisho gave up 10 runs in two innings.

But leave it up to the A’s bullpen to pull a massive El Foldo. Luis Vizcaino, Doug Jones, T.J. Mathews and Mike Magnante combined to blow the eight-run lead. And because the bullpen is in it together, Jeff Tam blew it in the ninth by dropping a potential double-play ball that kept the inning going for Mike Lamb to hit a winning single over a drawn-in, two-man outfield.

In the eighth, Texas sent eight batters to the plate before the A’s could record their first out. Magnante, Jones and Mathews combined for 1 1/3 innings, nine hits and six runs.

“I didn’t do my job,” Magnante said. “Anytime you have an eight-run lead, the offense puts the pressure on and keeps going, it’s plain and simple: you shut the door. But we didn’t do anything.”