(Best E Casino) - The Oakland Athletics will attempt to keep up their strong late-season run when the red-hot club continues a three-game series with the struggling Texas Rangers tonight at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.

Oakland has won eight of its last nine games and four straight contests following an extra-inning triumph over the Rangers in Monday's opener of this set. Travis Buck doubled in Cliff Pennington with the go-ahead run in the top of the 11th inning to lift the Athletics to a 4-3 victory.

Pennington led off the frame with a double off Luis Mendoza (3-8) and scored three batters later when Buck singled through the right side of the infield.

Santiago Casilla worked around a leadoff single in the bottom half of the 11th to notch his second save of the season. Alan Embree (2-4) garnered the win with 1 1/3 scoreless innings of relief.

The Rangers sent the game into extras on Hank Blalock's solo homer off A's closer Brad Ziegler in the bottom of the ninth. Blalock finished 3-for-5 with two runs scored and has gone 9-for-13 with two homers, five RBI and scored four times over Texas' last three outings.

German Duran added two hits, including an RBI single, for Texas, which has dropped five in a row and seven of its last nine games.

The Rangers will get a second look tonight at Oakland rookie hurler Josh Outman, who notched his first and only major-league victory against Texas earlier this month.

Outman made his first start in the bigs following a pair of relief appearances on September 13, and limited the Rangers to one run and four hits over five innings to help the A's to a 7-1 triumph.

The 24-year-old, one of three prospects dealt to Oakland by Philadelphia in the July 18 trade that sent pitcher Joe Blanton to the Phillies, wasn't as sharp in his last trip to the hill. Against the Angels on Thursday, Outman was reached for three runs on six hits in 4 1/3 innings to take the loss in a 6-4 Oakland setback.

His mound opponent tonight, Texas' Dustin Nippert, handed the Athletics a defeat when he faced the club at McAfee Coliseum on September 11. The right- hander held Oakland to one run and struck out seven over a five-inning stint in that matchup.

The 27-year-old also threw four scoreless innings of relief against the Athletics at the Coliseum on July 27.

Nippert is 2-1 with a 3.31 ERA in three September starts, with the lone loss coming last Wednesday at home to Detroit. The West Virginia product allowed five runs and issued four walks against the Tigers before being removed after 4 1/3 innings.

Texas has won 10 of the 17 meetings between these divisional foes this season, including four of the seven tests held in Arlington. Oakland is just 6-10 at Rangers Ballpark over the past two years.