BALTIMORE -- The A's mashed, then mashed some more, unrelenting in an inning that was seemingly without end Wednesday night.
By the time the top half of the third concluded, to sarcastic applause from a light crowd at Camden Yards, Oakland was armed with a 10-run lead. It held up.
The 10-0 laugher over the reeling Orioles -- who managed just one hit -- gave the surging A's their sixth straight victory. They're 55-21 since June 16, tops in the Majors, and have lost just three of their last 25 series to go up 32 games over .500 (89-57) for the first time since 2003.
"That was incredible," Daniel Mengden said. "Our offense can do that any inning. It was just one of those things -- we have a scary offense, so when they get rolling, they get hot, it's bad news for everybody."
The first-place Astros, too, are on a roll, winning 10 of their last 11 -- including Wednesday's finale in Detroit -- to keep the A's at a three-game distance in the American League West. But the A's are just one game back of the AL Wild Card-leading Yankees, who lost to Minnesota on Wednesday, 3-1.

Matt Olson's 26th homer of the season, a three-run offering against Orioles right-hander Andrew Cashner, highlighted the eventful 10-run inning, which saw 15 batters go to the plate. Three of them came up with two hits: Nick Martini, Jonathan Lucroy and Matt Chapman, who drove in three runs.
All starting nine scored before the Orioles recorded an out. Martini and Lucroy singled to get things going against Cashner, who walked Ramon Laureano to load the bases for Chapman. The A's third baseman delivered a two-run double for his Major League-leading 37th extra-base hit since the All-Star break. Jed Lowrie and Khris Davis followed with consecutive run-scoring base hits, setting the stage for Olson's blast. That's when Stephen Piscotty extended his hitting streak to a career-high 13 games with a single, prompting Cashner's removal.
Marcus Semien greeted reliever Cody Carroll with a walk, and Martini and Lucroy teamed up for another round of back-to-back singles before Laureano hit into an out. Chapman's one-out RBI single would mark the A's 10th and final hit of the inning.

"I don't know that I've been a part of something like that," Olson said. "It was just everybody working the count, getting a good pitch and squaring it up. There weren't too many cheap ones. It was impressive, guys getting two hits in one inning.
"When the first out was made I heard the fans sarcastically cheering and I was like, 'Oh, didn't realize nobody had gotten out yet.'"
It was the A's first 10-run inning since Sept. 15, 2015, in the fourth against the White Sox. The franchise record for runs in an inning is 13, compiled in the first inning of a 16-8 win over the Angels on July 5, 1996.
"You'd think 10 runs in a game, you might spread it out amongst a few innings," A's manager Bob Melvin said. "It was a pretty remarkable inning. You don't see that happen very often, so it's nice to be able to create a little distance and give the bullpen a break and get some other guys in the game. But for it to happen all in one inning, that's kinda unique."
MOMENTS THAT MATTERED
Oakland opener Liam Hendriks worked around a base hit in a scoreless first, and Mengden twirled five hitless innings behind him as part of yet another successful pitching experiment. Their work, combined with the offensive outburst, allowed Melvin to rest his plus bullpen arms.

"Mengden seems like he's getting more and more confident, and obviously a lot more comfortable knowing he's going to get the second inning," Melvin said. "At a time when we have some guys going down, he's a great resource to have, and we feel confident in him, especially the way he's pitching right now."
SOUND SMART
Davis (110) and Lowrie (90) are the first pair of Oakland teammates to combine for 200 RBIs since Frank Thomas (114) and Nick Swisher (95) in 2006.

HE SAID IT
"I've said it before, anybody can carry the team on any given day for us. Bottom, top, middle of the lineup, it doesn't really matter much to us. We've got guys that can hit. It's not shocking by any means." -- Olson
UP NEXT
Lefty Brett Anderson (3-4, 4.02 ERA) will be reinstated from the disabled list to start Thursday's 4:05 p.m. PT finale against right-hander Dylan Bundy (7-14, 5.58) and the Orioles at Camden Yards. Anderson, sidelined by a left forearm strain for two weeks, put together a 2.15 ERA in August, holding the opponent scoreless in three of his five outings in the month.