Rangers nearly no-hit in season-opening loss

Ryan Rua went 1 for 3 in the first Opening Day start of his career, and for his efforts Monday night, he was the Texas Rangers’ player of the game.

That’s what happens when a player saves his team from being on the wrong end of baseball history.

Rua broke up Sonny Gray’s no-hitter with a clean single to start the eighth inning, and kept the Rangers from being only the second team in baseball history to be no-hit on Opening Day.

Instead, they were one-hit. Gray finished the eighth, and Evan Scribner worked a perfect ninth to complete the gem that allowed the A’s to snap a 10-game Opening Day losing streak with an 8-0 victory.

The good news for the Rangers is that it will be incredibly hard for things to get worse Tuesday night in Game 2 of 162.

“It’s 1 of 162,” said Jeff Banister, who was making his managerial debut. “I felt our guys really stayed stubborn with their approach. We did have some barreled balls.

“But credit to Sonny. He’s capable of doing that every night.”

The Rangers had four base runners against Gray: Rougned Odor on a hit batsman in the third, Leonys Martin on a two-base error in the sixth, Rua in the eighth, and a walk to Robinson Chirinos in the eighth.

Gray, who was vying for the first Opening Day no-no since Bob Feller in 1940, finished with only three strikeouts as he jumped ahead in counts and forced the Rangers to put the ball in play. The A’s defense helped Gray several times, including a sliding catch by center fielder Sam Fuld on the first play of the game.

“We faced a good pitcher,” right fielder Shin-Soo Choo said. “He threw a lot of strikes, and they played good defense. I think they played better baseball today.”

The A’s spoiled Yovani Gallardo’s debut with his hometown team. The right-hander allowed four runs in four-plus innings, including a two-run first-inning homer to Ben Zobrist after Fuld had tripled.

Gallardo threw only 51 of his 89 pitches for strikes as he battled command issues and ran into bad luck as the A’s scored twice in the fourth. One run came home on a blooper by Marcus Semien, and another scored on a two-out wild pitch.

“My command wasn’t there,” Gallardo said. “I was just falling behind batters. You can’t do that, no matter what team it is.”

A’s catcher Stephen Vogt put the game out of the reach with a three-run homer in the seventh off Phil Klein. The only drama at that point became Gray’s no-hit bid.

The drama had a short run as Rua, who entered the game 3 for 6 in his career against Gray, sent on 0-2 pitch into right field for a clean single. Rua was doubled off first base on the next play as Ike Davis snared a Mitch Moreland liner only a foot off the bag.

“I’m just trying to shorten up and get the barrel to the ball,” Rua said. “The team in general had a bunch of good at-bats. It’s a pride thing for me and our team just to get that out of the way.”

Said third baseman Adrian Beltre: “Nobody wants to have a no-hitter thrown against them. But when you hit some balls hard at people, it can happen. We didn’t want it to happen. It was a relief to get one, but it wasn’t enough.”

Banister, who designed a lineup with Choo fifth to help extend Gray’s pitch count, didn’t have many complaints about the Rangers’ day at the plate.

“I felt like we had an approach and a plan,” Banister said. “You can put all those things together, but the guy on the mound, when he’s pretty good, he has a say-so in it.”

This story was originally published April 6, 2015 at 11:54 PM with the headline "Rangers nearly no-hit in season-opening loss."