SEATTLE – Bartolo Colon gave up just three hits in seven shutout innings for his 16th career win against Seattle, and the Oakland Athletics won 4-0 on Friday night to ruin the Mariners' home opener.
Making his third start already this season against Seattle, Colon (2-1) rebounded from a shaky effort last time out against the Mariners and beat them for the second time in 2012. His first win over Seattle came during the season-opening, two-game series played in Tokyo.
Felix Hernandez was wiggling free of trouble most of the night. Cliff Pennington had an RBI double and Coco Crisp an RBI single in the third. Jemile Weeks hit a solo home run with two outs in the top of the ninth, his second homer of the season.
Hernandez (1-1) gave up just the two runs in seven innings but got no help from Seattle's offense.
It was the first loss for Hernandez against Oakland since September 18, 2008. He had won his previous six decisions against the A's.
Meanwhile, Colon improved to 10-1 with a 1.91 ERA at Safeco Field. His 16 wins versus Seattle is the most of any active pitcher in baseball. Colon struck out five and walked one. Ryan Cook walked the first two batters of the eighth, but got Chone Figgins to ground into a double play to quell the threat.
Colon was rattled for 10 hits and seven earned runs by Seattle last Saturday, but retired the final 10 batters on Friday night after Seattle's one threat in the fourth inning. Ichiro Suzuki led off with a single and advanced to third on Jesus Montero's two-out hit, only to be stranded when Michael Saunders struck out looking.
Colon retired the side in order in the fifth and sixth innings then got a break leading off the seventh. Kyle Seager lined the first pitch of the seventh into center field. Yoenis Cespedes made a direct path to the sinking liner and made a great diving catch. But on slow motion television replay, it appeared that Cespedes trapped the sinking liner.
Seager's liner was one of the few hard-hit balls for Seattle. Saunders just missed a three-run homer in the fourth when his shot hooked foul. After showing some signs of offensive progress during their long opening road trip that stretched from Arizona to Japan and California to Texas, the Mariners have scored just seven runs the last 43 innings.
Oakland's runs in the fourth started with a broken bat single by Daric Barton that bounded into right field. He advanced to second on a weak groundout out then jogged home on Pennington's one-hop double off the wall in deep right-center field. Pennington later scored when Crisp singled to left. Figgins bobbled the hop on Crisp's single and that allowed Pennington to score when it appeared he was stopping at third. Figgins was not charged with an error.
Oakland added a run in the eighth off Seattle's bullpen on Kurt Suzuki's sacrifice fly that scored Josh Reddick.
Notes: Former Seattle CF Mike Cameron threw out the ceremonial first pitch and announced before the game he was retiring as a Mariner. Cameron played for Seattle from 2000-03 and signed a ceremonial one-day employment contract on Friday so that he could retire with the Mariners. ... Colon and Hernandez became the first pitchers since Kevin Brown in 2004 to start the season with three starts against the same team. ... Seattle announced a sellout of more than 46,000 for the opener but empty seats were noticeable in the outfield bleachers and in the 300 level above right field.
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