Yu Darvish did all he could to get through the eighth inning of the Texas Rangers' 4-1 win over the Oakland A's on Wednesday night.
He couldn't quite do it, surrendering the ball to the Rangers' bullpen in the eighth inning, but things could not have gone much easier for Mike Adams and Joe Nathan in preserving Darvish's sixth win of the season.
Adams struck out the one batter he faced in the eighth inning to get the third out, and when he gave way to Nathan in the ninth, the new Rangers closer picked up where his set-up man left off.
Nathan struck out the side in the ninth to close out the game for his eighth save of the season and continued a really solid run of late after he got off to a rocky start as a Ranger. Nathan made the A's lineup look, well what it is, horrible as he struck out the side on 15 pitches to lower his ERA to 2.87 after it had skied up over 5.00 a month ago.
Since April 18, he's made just 10 appearances, as the Rangers have been scarce in save opportunities, but he's allowed two runs over that stretch, only one of which was earned. That came on a ninth-inning home run on Sunday night in a non-save situation as the Rangers were beating the Angels in a blowout.
