OAKLAND -- There have been days in August when the Rangers offense has been hammering away at the opposing pitcher: hitting home runs, creating one scoring opportunity after another and taking advantage of them.
Then, there have been days like Saturday when the Rangers dropped to one game under .500 with an 8-3 loss to the Athletics.
The Rangers had nine hits, drew three walks and had another reach base by hit batter. But they were 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position in losing to the Athletics for the second straight game.
"We were able to create situations and weren't able to bring them home," third baseman Adrian Beltre said. "That's it. We had plenty of chances to do it and we didn't come through. We didn't execute. We got the baserunners, but we didn't get the job done after that."
The Rangers led 2-0 in the first inning but couldn't build on that.
"We put 14-15 baserunners on, I'll take our chances with that," Rangers manager Jeff Banister said. "We have too many good hitters not to capitalize on those situations. Our guys in those situations have been good. Today was one of those days."
The Rangers' first three hitters -- Delino DeShields, Shin-Soo Choo and Elvis Andrus -- were 6-for-15 on the day. But the middle of the order -- Beltre, Carlos Gomez, Mike Napoli and Rougned Odor -- were 1-for-14. Odor was 0-for-4 with three strikeouts.

Napoli had the big at-bat on the afternoon. The Rangers trailed 3-2 into the top of the fifth against Oakland starter Sean Manaea but loaded the bases with two outs for Napoli.
He worked the count full and just missed one with a long drive to left that hooked foul. Manaea then threw him a couple of changeups. Napoli fouled off one and missed the next one to end the inning.
"It was a big at-bat," Napoli said. "I got into a good hitter's count and he threw me a good changeup."