OAKLAND, Calif. — The long ball has carried the Texas Rangers in their victories this season, and David Murphy supplied two homers as the offense-starved Rangers banged out 10 hits Wednesday night.

But the outburst, albeit a minor one relative to what the Rangers’ offense did last season and over the first two months this year, was outdone by a light-hitting Oakland club that found its power stroke against Vicente Padilla.

The Athletics collected three homers against the right-hander and added the go-ahead shot in the sixth inning off Neftali Feliz in a 7-5 victory that dropped the Rangers to 0-3 to start their longest road trip of the season.

The Rangers didn’t lose any ground in the playoff chase but for the second consecutive night failed to make gains as the Los Angeles Angels and Boston Red Sox lost again.

“You don’t always go out there and have your best stuff,” manager Ron Washington said of Padilla, who declined to speak to the media. “It could have been better, and I’m quite sure he would say it could have been better.”

The Rangers quickly found themselves down 2-0 after Scott Hairston’s two-out homer in the first. Padilla hit Kurt Suzuki two batters later, which drew a retaliatory pitch into Michael Young’s back in the third inning of a 2-1 game.

Young would score moments later when Murphy hit a deep drive off the foul pole in right field to give the Rangers a 3-2 lead.

But Padilla saw the advantage disappear in four pitches. Rajai Davis started the bottom of the third with a double and advanced to third on a passed ball.

He scored two pitches later on a sacrifice fly by Hairston, just beating the throw home from right fielder Josh Hamilton to forge a short-lived 3-3 tie.

Suzuki got a taste of revenge two batters later with his second solo homer in as many games. The A’s power surge continued in the fourth when Cliff Pennington ripped the first homer of his career to start inning.

“You want to hold a lead when you get it,” Murphy said. “At that point of the game, it’s early. You still have confidence that we’re still going to take the lead.”

The Rangers never did that, but they did climb back into a 5-5 tie. Murphy made it 5-3 with an opposite-field solo homer to left, and Hamilton tied it in the sixth with a sacrifice fly that scored Hank Blalock.

But Oakland, which has the fewest homers in the American League, went back in front in the bottom of the inning.

After Mark Ellis had doubled, Padilla struck out Pennington for the second out on his 107th pitch. Washington summoned Feliz from the bullpen to face Adam Kennedy in a matchup that went Feliz’s way Monday in his major-league debut.

But Kennedy won this matchup, turning on a 97-mph fastball and sending it over the right-field wall for a 7-5 lead.

Washington admitted that the decision to remove Padilla backfired. Catcher Taylor Teagarden, who drove in the Rangers’ first run in the second, said Feliz left the pitch over the middle of the plate.

“He (Kennedy) was geared up for it,” Teagarden said. “When a guy’s throwing that hard, you just make any kind of decent contact and the ball’s going to wind up in the seats. He was ready for it, and he got it.”