Plan B.

I didn’t love that Sam Dyson had to pitch the ninth inning on Tuesday, and I didn’t love that Nick Martinez got off the bullpen bench in the third inning on Wednesday, starting to get loose as Oakland was busy sending eight hitters to the plate against Derek Holland.

Hours earlier, Jeff Banister had hinted in an MLB Network Radio interview that Martinez, recalled the day before to replace Tom Wilhelmsen on the big league staff, was the odds-on candidate to take Yu Darvish’s start (rather than Cesar Ramos) Saturday in St. Louis.

Now he was having to prepare to enter a game that already felt like it was slipping away, possibly used in a loss and potentially compromising the team’s chances in another game three days later.

That’s not to say Nick Martinez is a core member of the pitching staff, but if the club had planned to start him Saturday, it looked like Plan B was going to have to be enacted, and when smart folks are making plans, Plan B is usually less preferable than Plan A.

Holland got through the third, stranding two and holding the score at 3-0, but he didn’t survive the fourth, throwing 10 of his first 14 pitches in that frame for balls (walk, lineout, walk), and fanning Yonder Alonso on eight pitches before handing the ball to Banister, who handed it to Martinez.

The righthander’s first pitch, doubled by Billy Burns, put two final runs on Holland’s ledger.

It was Oakland 5, Texas 0 at that point. Then things changed.

Martinez ended the fourth, Texas went quietly in the fifth, and Oakland reached once in the bottom of that frame but didn’t score.

The Rangers then put together their own eight-hitter inning — homer, double, double, groundout, sac fly, single, homer, lineout — and suddenly 5-0 was 5-5.

Martinez came back out and threw first-pitch strikes to the first three of four A’s who hit in their sixth (groundout-groundout-single-strikeout), 12 of 17 overall, and his 45-pitch night was done.

And then Robinson Chirinos homered for the second time in two innings, putting Texas ahead and lining things up for a Matt Bush seventh, a Jake Diekman eighth, and a Dyson ninth.

Nine up, nine down.

Bush and Diekman and Dyson were used on a night when Texas was losing by five runs in the fourth inning, and this time it was a really awesome thing that they were needed.

They were needed because the Rangers got to Sonny Gray (nine quality starts against Texas out of 10) and got to John Axford (seven straight scoreless outings, and 12 of 13) and got to Sean Doolittle (eight straight scoreless outings, and 14 of 15).

And because Nick Martinez, a second baseman at Fordham University who mixed in 26.1 college innings on the mound, enough of which Rangers area scout Jay Heafner saw to pound his fist in Round 18 in 2011, pitched on a night when the plan had apparently been for him to not pitch, and kicked off a run of 5.1 scoreless bullpen innings (three hits, no walks, four strikeouts, 13 of the A’s final 14 hitters retired) that, without which, we’re not talking today about two Chirinos homers or two Rougned Odor homers or a really outstanding night at the plate for Shin-Soo Choo.

Maybe Martinez’s 45 pitches will actually turn out to be a between-starts side, and Texas goes ahead and gives him the ball in St. Louis on Saturday. Maybe.

If not, it’s Frisco righthander Connor Sadzeck’s day to pitch, and he’s on the 40-man roster. Or maybe Ramos gets the assignment after all. Stay tuned.

I didn’t like seeing Tuesday night’s game necessitate Dyson’s entry.

But Texas won.

I didn’t like seeing last night’s game necessitate Martinez’s usage.

But Texas won.

And the pace is now 100 of those, in the regular season.

The Rangers keep finding different ways to win, and different guys to rely on.

Even when Plan B is in play.