Sears’ ‘great’ outing obliterated in A’s loss to Mariners originally appeared on NBC Sports Bayarea
In what’s been a similar theme all season, the Athletics’ offensive fire began and ended in the first inning of their 5-1 loss to the Seattle Mariners on Saturday.
The Mariners’ pitching staff completely stifled the A’s offense, holding them to just two hits in the very first inning. Jordan Diaz has his first career RBI, which came on a single to left that scored Tony Kemp for their early and only lead of the ballgame.
Adam Oller came off the 15-day injured list on Friday and then opened for the A’s on Saturday. He gave up three runs and three hits and struck out two and walked two in one inning.
A’s manager Mark Kotsay explained the decision to open with Oller.
“It’s kind of controlling the environment for him,” Kotsay said after the game. “Anytime you come back and go to the bullpen as a starter, you don’t want to get him up and not bring him in that inning. This eliminates that. It just gives him a clean start to the game.”
JP Sears took the mound in the second and retired his first nine batters faced. He struck out six, walked two and gave up two hits.
The Mariners didn’t get another run again with Sears on the mound.
“I thought Sears did a great job today commanding the baseball, utilizing the fastball at the top of the zone,” Kotsay told reporters after the game. “His off-speed pitches got some swings and misses. The outing was great to end the year on.”
Seattle’s final two runs came in the bottom of the eighth against A’s Kirby Snead.
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Luis Castillo started for the Mariners and was pretty much flawless in six innings, striking out eight and retiring 16 in a row.
The Mariners won their fourth game in a row a few hours after clinching the club’s first playoff appearance in 21 years.
Oakland dropped two of the first three games of the series against the Mariners and will look to avoid the sweep on Sunday.