Oakland A’s Split Doubleheader With Seattle And Avoid The Sweep
May 7, 2014; Oakland, CA, USA; Oakland Athletics second baseman Eric Sogard (28) is greeted at the dugout after scoring in the seventh inning off a base hit by catcher John Jaso (5) during their baseball game with the Seattle Mariners at O.co Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Lance Iversen-USA TODAY Sports
The Oakland A’s split their doubleheader with the Seattle Mariners to finish off a four-game series between the clubs. The Mariners won the first game 6-4 in the 10th inning while Oakland’s pitching staff looked good in a 2-0 shutout in the second game of the day to avoid the sweep.
Game 1
In game one the matchup was between Felix Hernandez and Dan Straily, though neither picked up a decision in the extra inning game. The Oakland A’s did knock Hernandez around a bit as they got 11 hits off of him in 6.1 innings, but he only allowed three runs.
On the other side Straily allowed three runs on four hits, though he also walked four, in six innings of ball. Two of those earned runs came off of solo home runs, with Corey Hart hitting one in the second inning and Mike Zunino hitting the other one in the fifth. The other came on a Justin Smoak sac-fly that scored James Jones from third.
Offensively Oakland’s biggest inning came in the bottom of the seventh when they scored three runs, and at the moment was enough to take a 4-3 lead.
All three runs came on successive batters starting with a John Jaso single to left field. Josh Donaldson followed that up with a sac-fly to center field and then Brandon Moss tripled to score Jaso. After that Hernandez was chased from the ballgame.
Seattle would answer in the top of the eighth inning to tie the game at four apiece when Robinson Cano singled against Luke Gregerson to bring in Michael Saunders from second base.
In the tenth inning the Mariners would take hold of the game against Dan Otero of the Oakland A’s when Smoak singled in his second RBI of the game. Kyle Seeger followed that up with a base-hit of his own and after that it was a 6-4 Mariner lead. Seattle reliever Fernando Rodney would enter the game in the bottom of the inning to close the game out and earning his ninth save of the season in the process.
Game 2
The second game of the afternoon featured a great pitching battle between Drew Pomeranz of the Oakland A’s and Erasmo Ramirez for Seattle.
This time is was the A’s who came out on top as Pomeranz threw five innings of two-hit ball including five strikeouts. He would pick up his second win of the season in the 2-0 victory while his counterpart Ramirez fell to 1-4 on the season.
Afterward both Dan Otero and Jim Johnson came up big in relief to keep the Mariners off the board. Johnson ended up earning his second save of the season. Otero was especially good needing just 30 pitches to get through three innings and allowing just one hit in the process.
The A’s didn’t need much run support in game two, but when they did score they came in back-to-back innings. The first run of the game came in the third inning in a simple base hit by Jed Lowrie that brought in Cole Gillespie while the second and final run of the game came in the fourth on Cespedes’ sixth home run of the season.
After dropping three of four to the Mariners the Oakland A’s will look to bounce back as they continue their 10-game home stand against the Washington Nationals starting tomorrow evening. The Nationals are coming off of a series win against the Dodgers after taking two of three at home against them.