OAKLAND — The Oakland Athletics knew their remarkable run of success during a memorable July would have to end at some point.

Alex Cobb shut down Oakland for seven innings and Carlos Pena homered as the Tampa Bay Rays handed the A’s their first back-to-back losses since June with a 4-1 victory on Wednesday.

“We’ll grind through it. We haven’t lost a series in a while and we have to move forward,” said Oakland manager Bob Melvin. “We’re not going to be perfect and put seven or eight runs on the board every time. We’re going through a rough patch. We’ll be fine.”

The A’s were almost perfect last month, going 19-5 for the best July in franchise history as they bolted back into the AL playoff race behind stellar pitching and late-inning dramatics from the hitters.

All that was missing on Wednesday. Brandon Inge provided the only run with a homer in the fifth and Jarrod Parker allowed three runs and eight hits in six innings.

“I think we all know the game has its ups and downs and we just have to stick with it, keep battling,” Inge said. “There are plenty of guys here who can pick up the slack. We’ll just keep going at it.”

Pena, who drove in five runs in the series, hit an RBI double in the sixth inning and a solo homer in the eighth for the Rays, who won three straight series on one trip for the fourth time in franchise history. Jeff Keppinger scored twice and Matt Joyce and Ryan Roberts also drove in runs for the Rays, who moved within 1 1/2 games of Oakland for the second wild-card spot in the American League.

Cobb (5-8) struck out Brandon Moss with the bases loaded to end the bottom of the first, starting a run of 10 straight batters that he retired. That was snapped when Inge led off the fifth inning with his 12th homer to cut Tampa Bay’s lead to 2-1, but Cobb pitched around a double by Kurt Suzuki to preserve the lead.

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