Congratulations to those ANers who actually sat through The Game That Would Never End, as the Texas Rangers absolutely crushed the A’s in their riveting battle for who finishes in second place in the AL West.

The A’s held a brief lead in the second, as Cliff Pennington singled home the A’s first run, but the Rangers scored three in the fourth and two in the fifth to take the lead. After Cust hit a solo homerun in the six to bring the A’s within three, Texas absolutely lit up Oakland pitching in their half of the inning like the pitchers were throwing batting practice. The debacle started with a warning by the plate umpire after Eveland hit Blalock to put the leadoff man on base. I have no idea why anyone really thought that was intentional, but Eveland paid for it in spades, as the very next pitch was hit out for a two-run homerun.

It only got worse from there. Casilla replaced Eveland and faced four batters: Walk, double, wild pitch, single, double; exit Casilla. Enter Jeff Gray: Double, double, out, single, out, out, to mercifully bring the inning to a close, but not before eight runs crossed the plate.

The A’s would go on to score two more runs on a double by Bowen and a homerun by Denorfia, and Texas would get another homerun, and by the time the dust settled, the final score would end up 14-4.

There was nothing terribly memorable about the game, unless you had fantasy players on the Rangers; it will go down as just another loss for the A’s in the 2008 campaign. The A’s now fly to Seattle to play one last weekend series against the Mariners. Three more games. Three more games. Three more games.