ARLINGTON -- Throughout the spring, Rangers manager Jeff Banister really didn’t have much to hammer home with his team. Just two simple points. Two.

Throw strikes. Eliminate mistakes in the field.

They had two jobs. ...

Saturday was another example that the project isn’t exactly off to a roaring start. In a 6-1 loss to Oakland, the best thing that can be said about the night was: “Well, at least it wasn’t a no-hitter.” And, for a while, you couldn’t even say that. Oakland’s Kendall Graveman kept the Rangers hitless until there were two outs in the seventh. Mike Napoli broke it up with a home run.

And, so ends the highlights portion of the broadcast. Now, back to those spring projects. About the walks: Yu Darvish allowed a leadoff walk in what was then a scoreless tie to bloom into a run. The next inning, a fielding error by Napoli on what should have been a double play ball set the stage for a second run. An eighth-inning rally blew the game open. The key: Nomar Mazara overran a ball in the right-field corner and it fell for a generously-scored double.

“The limiting of walks, we’ve got to be better at that,” Banister said Saturday. “Obviously, we want to be better on defense. We’re not where we want to be on defense.”

A year ago, Rangers starters allowed the most walks in the AL with 344. They allowed the third most unearned runs with 41. Put walks and mistakes together and you’ve got the recipe for a whole lot of disaster to follow. The Rangers avoided it last year with uncanny ability to win close games, but to those who crunch numbers, the idea of winning 36 of 47 one-run games again was unsustainable.

Hence, the spring project.

So far, not so good. Having moved his foot back to the third base side of the pitching rubber for this start, Darvish walked the game’s first hitter on four pitches before settling in. But his three walks pushed the rotation’s total to 15 for the first five games. The starters are averaging 4.9 walks per nine innings. That’s a recipe for high pitch counts, short nights and extra stress on an unexpectedly thin bullpen.

Darvish had just completed a swift six-pitch fifth inning that included his first-ever pickoff when trouble hit. In the sixth, he got ahead of Matt Joyce 0 and 2 with a slider-cutter combo. But he couldn’t get him to chase a curve or a slider that were very close to the location of the second strike. And home plate umpire Jerry Meals called both balls. Joyce ended up walking. Ryon Healy followed with a well-struck ball to left for a double that moved Joyce to third.

“I thought I executed the pitches, but didn’t get some close calls,” Darvish said of the at-bat. “But if it gets called a ball, I’ve got to go execute the next pitch. In that situation, it is what it is.”

Rather than walk Khris Davis to try to set up a double play or a force at home, the Rangers brought the infield corners in and got a weak ground ball that forced Joyce to hold. But the next batter, Stephen Vogt, was able to get the ball more towards second where Rougned Odor was playing at normal depth. The Rangers traded the out for a 1-0 deficit. It was the seventh walk or hit batter the Rangers allowed this year that eventually scored.

“At that point, we’re trying to just give up the one run there,” Banister said. “Obviously if we keep it to one run, we feel like we’ve got a chance. If we play the infield in there, we give up two there and it makes it challenging. We limit it to one, which we did, we go to work and go manufacture a run or two. We felt like we were in good shape.”

They were not.

Oakland scored a second run, partly on Napoli’s throwing error in the seventh. In the eighth, Mazara overran a ball in the corner that may have been impacted by the 20-mph swirling winds. And then Dario Alvarez, yet to retire a left-handed hitter, allowed a two-run homer to Yonder Alonso.

“We made a couple of mistakes there,” Banister said. “The wind is obviously a factor, but it’s a ball, however, that we need to catch.”

Another mistake. A night filled with them. A week of too many. It all adds up to this: When the Rangers leave town after Sunday’s game, they will do so with a losing record for the first homestand of the year.

Twitter: @Evan_P_Grant