OAKLAND, Calif. – No-hitter or not, Oakland Athletics manager Bob Melvin prepared himself to pull rookie Jarrod Parker after the eighth inning Monday night.

Melvin prepared himself for the boos, but Michael Young’s single up the middle for Texas leading off the eighth inning broke up the Norwell graduate’s bid, making the manager’s move a no-brainer.

“Made it easy on him, good,” Young said before Tuesday’s game.

Parker (2-2) had reached 91 pitches after six innings, and that’s when Melvin made up his mind. The 23-year-old right-hander, making his ninth career start in Monday’s 12-1 win, threw a career-high 112 pitches in a May 13 loss to Detroit. He then was knocked out after two innings at San Francisco his next time out.

On Monday, Parker wound up finishing with eight scoreless innings on 111 pitches for his deepest outing yet. He struck out six and walked three, giving up just that hit to Young.

“We went in with a really good plan and the execution of it was exactly what we wanted to do,” Parker said after the game. “It’s one of those days. I had good stuff and they were off a little bit.”

Parker had thrown 107 pitches after seven innings, then Melvin said he had an “interesting little conversation” with his pitcher following the eighth to let him know the plan – “I think he had a pretty good idea,” Melvin said.

The skipper didn’t waver even after Parker’s four-pitch eighth. Melvin wasn’t going to be talked into letting Parker go back out for the ninth.

“No way, no way,” he said. “That was the least of my worries, getting booed. It wouldn’t have been a prudent thing to do.”

Parker, who didn’t crack the A’s rotation out of spring training, has given up two or fewer runs in seven of his eight 2012 starts for a 2.40 ERA.

A first-round pick selected ninth overall by the Diamondbacks in 2007, Parker came to the A’s in a December trade that sent All-Star Trevor Cahill and reliever Craig Breslow to Arizona.

Melvin was managing in Arizona when the D-backs drafted Parker, who the skipper said “blew me away” in minor league camp.

“He could be a No. 1,” Melvin said of Parker’s potential.