The Oakland Athletics are the American League West division champions after defeating the Texas Rangers 12-5 on Wednesday.
The A's scored four runs in the bottom of the 8th to put the game away. Derek Norris led the inning with a home run and then Brandon Moss hit a base-clearing double to give the A's a 7-run lead.
It did not look pretty at first, but the A's were able to put up six runs in the fourth to tie and take a 7-5 lead.
The inning was highlighted by an error by Josh Hamilton in centerfield.
With two outs and the game tied 5-5, Yoenis Cespedes missed a change-up that was left hanging by Derek Holland who came in relief to stop the bleeding in the fourth inning.
Cespedes popped up the change-up, ran to first, but not before punching his bat in anger. Hamilton misjudged the ball and committed the air that plated Coco Crisp and Stephen Drew for the go ahead runs.
Crisp played a huge part in the six-run fourth inning. He tied the game with a double that barely caught the foul line down right field. He drove in two runs to make it a 5-5 game.
The Rangers had their opportunity to tie the game in the top of the seventh. Adrian Beltre reached on single and Nelson Cruz reached on a double.
With no outs in the inning, Cook was able to get Michael Young to hit a chopper to Josh Donaldson followed by two strikeouts of David Murphy and Mike Napoli.
Starting pitching was irrelevant in this game as the A.J. Griffin was gone after a five-run third inning. He pitched 2.2 allowed four earned, two walks and no strikeouts.
An inning later, Ryan Dempster of the Rangers was gone after giving up five runs earned runs on six hits. He walked one and had three strikeouts.
The A's now await a challenger as the New York Yankees and the Baltimore Orioles have not completed their games.
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