ARLINGTON, Texas — Jesse Chavez pitched seven innings of one-hit ball and the Oakland Athletics completed a three-game sweep in battering the Texas Rangers’ beleaguered pitching staff in a 12-1 victory Wednesday.
Chavez struck out eight hitters and walked one.
Second baseman Eric Sogard was 2-for-4 with a double and three RBIs and designated hitter Yoenis Cespedes had two doubles, two RBI and two runs scored for the Athletics (18-10).
Both were among seven hitters who had at least two hits and an RBI in a 17-hit attack for Oakland, which beat the Rangers by a combined 25-4 over three games.
Center fielder Coco Crisp, whose home run represented Oakland’s 12th run, and left fielder Craig Gentry also had extra-base hits. Cather Derek Norris and first baseman Alberto Callaspo were each 3-for-5 with an RBI.
Oakland left 10 runners on base.
Prince Fielder accounted for Texas’ first and only hit through the game’s first seven innings, a first-inning single.
Chavez (2-0) retired 18 of his final 20 hitters, a streak interrupted only by a walk of Fielder in the fourth — erased on a 1-4-3 double play — and an error on shortstop Nick Punto in the fifth.
The 30-year-old Chavez struck out four of the last six hitters he faced.
Josh Wilson’s double in the eighth off Luke Gregerson scored Leonys Martin, who extended a hitting streak to seven games with a single, with Texas’ only run.
Left-hander Robbie Ross (1-2) took the loss for Texas (15-13). He became the third straight Rangers starter to work less than five innings, giving up 10 runs — though only six earned — on 11 hits in 3 1/3 innings.
Oakland didn’t need much help in dropping 10 runs on the Rangers in the third and fourth innings, but the Athletics got some anyway.
The Athletics sent 11 hitters to the plate in the third and scored seven times. Four of the runs were unearned after shortstop Elvis Andrus allowed Alberto Callaspo’s ground ball to go through his legs on a potential inning-ending double play.
Oakland already had three on the scoreboard — two on the first of Cespedes’ two-run doubles — but followed with four more by way of Nick Punto’s RBI groundout and Sogard’s two-run single.
Oakland sent nine more hitters to the plate in a three-run fourth inning. Derek Norris drove in his fourth run in two days with a single and Sogard registered his third RBI of the game with a single. The Rangers committed two more errors in the inning.
Ross left after 83 pitches, the Rangers’ third straight start of five innings or less.
NOTES: Rangers starter Robbie Ross walked RF Josh Reddick in the third, his first base on balls allowed in 21 1/3 innings (more than three starts and 99 batters). … The Athletics have 208 victories since 2012, the most in the majors. Texas’ 199 is tied for third most. … Oakland has an AL-best 12-4 record on the road this season.