The fun is over for the A's after Oakland's 5-3 loss to Texas on Monday

The fun lasted a few days but the wrecking ball that the Texas Rangers are these days put an end to the Oakland Athletics' smiley faces beating them 5-3 on the first of three games to be played between both ballclubs.

These two AL West foes (if only because they share division, not anything else) faced each other with the Rangers ending up winning their seventh consecutive game and the A's dropping to a paltry 32-81 record on the season.

You be the one guessing who leads the West and who trails everybody else in the division. Don't worry, you'll guess it perfectly right.

This was the rare game in which the A's led for the major part of the contest. They took a semi-early lead putting up three runs in the third inning, kept the visiting Rangers at bay (no pun intended) until Texas tied the game in the seventh, and only surrendered the lead for good in the eighth inning.

The hottest hitter in town, Nick Allen, put a ball in play and the members of the Rangers' outfield were so amazed by this man that they stumbled trying to chase that flyball and allowed Tony Kemp to mad-rush the bases on his way home to put the A's 1-0 upfront.

Things would get better soon enough as rookie Zack Gelof put a similarly-great ball in play, only this time to right field, to bring a couple of baserunners home and build that early 3-0 lead.

Then, nothing.

The A's seemed to have emptied their hit-tanks by the end of the third inning the deeper the game grew. The Rangers, on the other hand, improved their outing steadily until they finally broke for good in the eighth inning, snatched the lead from the Oaklanders, and conquered the Coli on Monday.

Both teams will meet again on Tuesday, then Wednesday for the finale of this short three-game series played in Oakland and inside the Cavernous Cali. The A's will try to stop the Rangers on their tracks twice, trying to break their seemingly unbreakable winning streak.

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