the Swingin' A's THREE Elephants of CESPEDES, MOSS, and DONALDSON all go Deep as the A's hang onto to beat the feisty Texas RANGERS 9-8 after leading 9-2 heading into the 8th..."WEEKEND BENDERS" AL West Battle Royale and TGIF Recap #2...Round 1 goes to the Green Corner #EastBayHardball

It's now how you draw it up in the 8th but the Athletics will take it as no matter the score it's a "W". After a wild 1st frame where it ended 3-2 Athletics...Oakland took off from there scoring in the 3rd through the 6th with crooked numbers in the 4th and 5th. The Rangers use a six-run 8th frame to make it 9-8 but they run out of juice and lose by that finals score of 9-8.

A's Starter Dan Straily gets the "W" as he goes into the 6th allowing two runs on two hits but issued four free passes and struck out four Rangers Hitters. Straily was good enough and Rangers Starter Derek Holland was just that awful. Holland lasted just three plus innings and was responsible for most of the damage allowing six runs on eight hits and two of those eight hits were Bombs by Yoenis Cespedes and Three-Run HR and a Solo bomb by Josh Donaldson. A's Pinch-Hitter Brandon Moss also went Solo Bomb off of Rangers Pitcher Ross Wolf. It was easy Holland's worst outing of 2013 and the Rangers are 2-8 in the Month of September after losing just six games in all of August.  

The Rangers get two RBI's each from SS Elvus Andrus and RF Alex Rios but they cored six runs in the 8th frame as it was just too late down 9-2 before they exploded for that crooked six in the 8th frame.

Rangers fall 4.5 games back of the Athletics and for them to make a run at the AL West they must win both Saturday and Sunday's Games. Texas leads the AL Wild Card by 1.5 games over the Rays as both are running on fumes.