Where: Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, Oakland, California
Temperature: 64°
Umpires: Home - Angel Hernandez, 1B - Paul Schrieber, 2B - Rob Drake, 3B - Joe West
Attendance: 8874
Rich Harden pitched two-hit ball over seven innings against his former team while leading the Texas Rangers to a 4-2 victory over the host Oakland Athletics on Monday.
Harden (2-1) struck out nine batters and didn’t walk anyone. He led the majors in walks (23) entering the contest.
Oakland threatened in the ninth with Kevin Kouzmanoff hitting a two-run homer off Frank Francisco. After Francisco walked Eric Chavez, Neftali Perez entered and retired the final three hitters for his sixth save of the season.
Texas went up 1-0 in the fourth when Ryan Garko’s infield groundout scored Vladimir Guerrero. The Rangers added two runs in the fifth on Michael Young’s run-scoring double and Josh Hamilton’s RBI-single.
Rookie first baseman Justin Smoak homered in the ninth.
Young went 3-for-4 for Texas, which had 13 hits.
Dallas Braden (3-2) allowed three runs and 11 hits in seven innings for Oakland.
| Texas | Oakland | |
| Rich Harden | Player | Dallas Braden |
| Win | W/L | Loss |
| 7.0 | IP | 7.0 |
| 9 | Strikeouts | 3 |
| 2 | Hits | 11 |
| 0.00 | ERA | 3.86 |
| Texas | Oakland | |
| Michael Young | Player | Gabe Gross |
| 3 | Hits | 1 |
| 1 | RBI | 0 |
| 0 | HR | 0 |
| 4 | TB | 1 |
| .600 | Avg | 1.000 |