A's Stay Alive in Anaheim

Art Howe has tried a number of things to get his overachieving Oakland Athletics into the playoffs.

Tuesday night, with his team one loss away from elimination in the AL wild-card race, Howe took a different approach."I finally shut up," he said after the A's ended a four-game losing streak with a 9-3 victory over the Anaheim Angels. "I've been doing too much talking, I think, trying to get these guys fired up over the last week to 10 days mainly because I knew we were a little tired."

"So I thought that maybe if I prod them a little bit, we could get through those last few games in Texas. But we couldn't, so I just kept my mouth shut today and we came out and played great baseball," he said.

"It's disappointing to be out of the race for the West," center fielder Ryan Christenson said. "I guess we're still not mathematically eliminated from the wild card, but it's still disappointing because we thought we should have played a lot better down the stretch."

The Boston Red Sox began the day needing one win or an Oakland loss to clinch a playoff spot. But Boston was rained out at Chicago, and the Athletics stayed in contention with five games left.

"Coming into th year, I'm sure that we were open for a season like this," rookie pitcher Tim Hudson said after winning for the ninth time in his last 10 decisions. "I'm sure there were a lot of people who didn't expect this from us, but we knew that we had a lot of talent and it was just a matter of time before it showed."

Hudson (11-2) gave up a two-run homer to Vaughn and tied a career high with six walks in five innings. But he held the Angels to four hits and struck out five.

"He's been awesome," Christenson said. "He's been a bulldog for us all year. I think this has been his worst outing, as far as walks, but he still battled and when he gets guys on base, he was still able to make the pitch and get the big strikeout or ground ball when he needed to."

Randy Velarde, playing his first game at Edison Field since the July 29 trade that sent him and pitcher Omar Olivares to Oakland for three minor leaguers, doubled with one out in the fifth. Giambi followed with his homer off Jarrod Washburn (3-5), giving Oakland a 4-2 lead.

"I was disappointed in the whole outing," Washburn said. "I can't explain it. It's one of those days when I couldn't find the strike zone. I got behind hitters and they made me pay for it. My curveball probably saved me from giving up more runs than I did."

Oakland put it away with a four-run seventh after loading the bases against Al Levine. Saenz greeted Mark Petkovsek with a two-run single, Hernandez followed with an RBI single and Miguel Tejada had a sacrifice fly that made it 8-3.

Jason McDonald homered in the eighth for Oakland.

"We know we have some talent in this locker room," Hudson said. "We may not be getting the paychecks most clubs are getting, but we have a lot of guys who love to play the game and play it hard. We have good team chemistry and that's all that matters."

The Athletics, who lead the majors with 745 walks, parlayed two walks and three singles into a pair of fourth-inning runs that tied it at 2.

Saenz followed John Jaha's second walk of the game with an RBI single, and Jaha scored on a bases-loaded walk to Tejada.

Facing the Angels for the first time in his 21 career starts, Hudson walked the bases loaded in the fifth before Jim Edmonds scored on an RBI grounder by Garret Anderson.

Edmonds snapped an 0-for-13 slide with a one-out double in the first and Vaughn followed with his 31st homer.

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