Blalock homers again as Rangers win home finale

Wed Sep 24, 2008 2:05 PM EDT

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ARLINGTON — Hank Blalock homered in his fourth straight game, Matt Harrison became the first Texas rookie left-hander to win nine games and the Rangers won their home finale, 14-4 over the Oakland Athletics on Wednesday.

Harrison (9-3) struck out seven over six innings. The only AL starters with more victories than Harrison since he made his major league debut July 8 are Cleveland's Cliff Lee (11) and Toronto's A.J. Burnett (10).

Blalock's three-run homer, his 11th, erased a 1-0 deficit in the fourth and put Texas ahead to stay. After Blalock was hit by a pitch to start the sixth, Nelson Cruz homered on the next pitch to chase Dana Eveland (9-9).

Travis Metcalf also homered and Michael Young went 4-for-4 with a walk for Texas, which has a 1 1/2-game lead over Oakland for second place in the AL West with three games left for both teams.

After missing 91 games this season because of injuries and playing only 58 games last year, Blalock isn't certain of returning with the Rangers. The club has a $6.2 million option for 2009, or a $250,000 buyout, on the two-time All-Star third baseman who switched to first base because of shoulder problems.

But Blalock is showing he can still hit, going 17-for-37 over the last 10 games. He has a streak of six consecutive games with an extra-base hit, a run scored and an RBI.

Blalock's homer came off left-hander Eveland, who didn't allow another homer to a left-handed hitter in his 29 starts this season.

The last batter Eveland faced was Cruz, whose 422-foot homer to left-center made it 7-2 with no outs in the sixth. Texas added six more runs against two relievers, including an RBI single by Blalock and Josh Hamilton's two-run double that snapped his 15-game drought without an RBI and upped his season total to 126.

Rangers manager Ron Washington said before the game that he expects to be back for a third season despite a slumping finish.

Texas overcame the worst start in team history to get to six games over .500 in early August. But the Rangers went 15-28 after that, that stretch culminated by a loss in the series opener against the A's on Monday that ensured their eighth losing season in nine years.

Jack Cust hit his 32nd homer, a solo shot, and had his 192nd strikeout, seven short of the major league record set last season by Philadelphia's Ryan Howard. Daric Barton had two doubles and scored twice for the A's.

Notes:@ Rangers DH Milton Bradley, who entered with an AL-best .440 on-base percentage, was 2-for-5 and reached the minimum number of plate appearances needed to qualify as the leader. ... The Rangers finished 40-41 at home and drew fewer than 2 million fans for the first time in their 15 seasons at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. The final crowd was 16,832, pushing the season total to 1,945,857.