The Oakland Athletics will try to stop a four-game losing streak when they open a three-game series against the Seattle Mariners Friday at Safeco Field.
The Athletics are just 2-5 on a 10-game road trip and were just swept in a four-game series by the Cleveland Indians. The Tribe broke out the brooms on the A's with Thursday's 9-2 victory in the series finale, as Bartolo Colon suffered the loss for allowing six runs and eight hits in just four innings.
Evan Scribner gave up the last three runs in three innings of relief.
"We stayed on Colon," Indians manager Terry Francona said. "He's got that terrific two-seamer that you're just dying and rolling over into a double play. We didn't. We stayed in the middle of the field, and we barreled up a lot of balls and we stayed at him."
Josh Donaldson homered and both he and Adam Rosales ended with two hits for the Athletics, who were out hit by a 12-7 margin. Rosales, of course, was involved in Wednesday's 4-3 loss to the Indians in which he appeared to tie the game with a home run off closer Chris Perez. The play was ruled a double on the field and upheld after a video review, despite replays that appeared to show the ball clearing the wall and hitting a railing in left-center before caroming back onto the field.
Major League Baseball admitted that "an improper call" was made in a statement released Thursday. However, the Indians' 4-3 victory on Wednesday held up.
Daniel Straily gets the call for Oakland Friday and he is 1-0 with a 5.94 earned run average in three starts. He has posted back-to-back no-decisions and allowed three runs in 5 1/3 innings of a 5-4 win at Yankee Stadium on Sunday. He has made one career start against Seattle and the A's have won each time the right-hander has taken the mound.
Seattle just split a two-game set with the Pittsburgh Pirates by claiming a 2-1 victory on Wednesday.
Jesus Montero hit a go-ahead solo home run in the seventh inning and Felix Hernandez threw eight innings of one-run ball to improve to 5-2 on the season. Tom Wilhelmsen tossed a scoreless ninth for his ninth save.
But Montero's blast in the seventh was the highlight of the game.
"It was big for us," Hernandez said. "We're coming from where we lost in Toronto the last game there and the first game here. We just wanted to win this one so bad."
The Mariners had dropped two in a row and won for the seventh time in 10 tries. Michael Saunders walked three times and scored the other run for Seattle.
Toeing the rubber for Seattle Friday will be Japanese right-hander Hisashi Iwakuma, who is 3-1 with a 1.61 earned run average in seven starts. Iwakuma defeated the Blue Jays up north his last time out on Saturday and allowed only one run in seven innings.
Iwakuma topped the Athletics in his season debut on April 2 with six innings of one-run ball and is 1-2 with a 4.05 ERA in three games (2 starts) against the AL West rivals.
The 2013 series between Oakland and Seattle is tied at 2-2 with all four games played in southern California.
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