The Oakland Athletics used a 5-2 victory on Sunday to salvage a split of their four game series against the Seattle Mariners. After stumbling to back-to-back shutouts to start the series, the A’s took advantage of the “lesser” pitchers in the Mariners starting rotation in getting their split. Brett Anderson earned the victory today as he improved to 2-1 and lowered his earned run average to 1.56.
Josh Willingham proved key today as he drove in three runs to get the victory for Anderson and the A’s. The game was notted at one in the seventh and Anderson was running out of innings when Willingham doubled in Coco Crisp and Conor Jackson. The Mariners got an unearned run back in the bottom of the seventh after a Kouzmanoff error and things were once again tight. however, Willingham added another RBI in a key ninth inning rally that moved the A’s lead to 5-2.
Brian Fuentes and Grant Balfour handled their business shutting out Seattle over the final two innings. The victory improved the A’s to 11-11 on the season as they now head down to Anaheim for a three game series.