Recap: Oakland vs. Seattle
Sports Network | September 20, 2008
Oakland, CA (Sports Network) - Dana Eveland hurled seven shutout innings and the Oakland Athletics blanked the Seattle Mariners, 2-0, in the opener of a three-game set.
Eveland (9-8) gave up seven hits and matched a season-high with seven strikeouts without issuing a walk. The rookie southpaw is 2-0 with four no- decisions over his last six starts.
Travis Buck hit a solo home run and Kurt Suzuki drove in the other run for the A's, who have put together a good stretch with wins in seven of their last 10 games.
Felix Hernandez (9-11) went the distance -- eight innings -- but allowed both Oakland runs on six hits and was dealt a tough loss. The right-hander walked one and struck out eight for Seattle. The M's had nine hits but left 11 men on base and extended a scoreless drought to 26 consecutive innings. Seattle last plated a pair of runs in the first frame of a 5-2 loss to Kansas City on Wednesday and have been shut out in each of the past two games.
The Mariners have dropped the first nine games of their 11-game road trip and matched their worst skid since a nine-game slide from August 25-September 2, 2007. Seattle, at 57-96, is closing in on its first 100-loss season since 1983 and have dropped 11 in a row on the road.
Buck's home run led off the fourth and Suzuki added an RBI single to score Ryan Sweeney later in the inning for a 2-0 advantage. Sweeney doubled with one away. Oakland didn't leave the frame without a blemish of its own as Jack Cust struck out for the second time to surpass Rob Deer (186) for the dubious AL mark of strikeouts in a season with 187.
Seattle had back-to-back two-out singles in the fifth and got an Ichiro Suzuki two-out double in the seventh but Eveland escaped each time without incident.
Joey Devine made his 21st consecutive appearance without allowing a run in a 1-2-3 eighth and Brad Ziegler worked around a pair of singles in the ninth to collect his 10th save of the season.
Oakland leads the season series 8-6...Eveland has beaten the Mariners three times this season...Carlos Silva (4-15) will toe the rubber Saturday for Seattle opposite Oakland's Gio Gonzalez (1-4)...Eveland is 4-0 against Seattle this season in four starts with a 1.99 earned run average...Hernandez had a six-game win streak against Oakland snapped and registered a career-high with 194 2/3 innings pitched this season...Devine's streak spans 20 2/3 innings...The M's 26-inning scoreless streak is the third longest in club history.
