The Oakland Athletics put together one of their most complete performances of the season Saturday night as they defeated the Seattle Mariners 9-1. The nine runs were a season high for an A’s offense that had struggled immensely this season. Trevor Cahill improved to 3-0 and lowered his ERA to 2.30 as he settled down after early struggles. Cahill gave up one run on five hits over the first two innings but held the Mariners to two hits the remaining four innings.
The big story of the day was the Athletics offensive explosion as they scored a season high nine runs against Jason Vargas and Josh Lueke. After the Coco Crisp snapped the A’s 20 2/3 inning scoreless streak with an RBI single in the third, things seemed destined to be frustrated. After Daric Barton walked, Conor Jackson poked a liner past second baseman Jack Wilson. It was a soft hit and Coco Crisp should have scored from second. However, as Crisp rounded third he saw Mike Gallego with the stop signal. Gallego was actually signaling to Barton at second, but Crisp got mixed up. Josh Willingham flew out to center after that and the A’s were left tied 1-1.
However, Oakland got things going in the fourth inning, adding three runs on a Kevin Kouzmanoff single and a two-run homer by Cliff Pennington. They added five more runs in the sixth inning on a Kouzmanoff three-run home run, a Crisp RBI double and a Jackson RBI single. After Cahill departed following the sixth inning, the bullpen locked things down the rest of the way for the win.
The A’s head back out to conclude the series tomorrow, hoping to once again get back to the .500 mark with another series split. They send out Brett Anderson to face Doug Fister at 1:10pm on CSN California. Anderson has been the A’s best starter this season, although Brandon McCarthy is running a close second. Oakland heads off to Anaheim afterward for three games.