Athletics 2 - 4 Mariners
Final
  for this game

Vargas pitches Mariners over A's

Sep 27, 2011 - 5:56 AM

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Seattle, WA (Sports Network) - Jason Vargas pitched eight strong innings and retired 14 straight batters at one point, boosting Seattle to a 4-2 win over Oakland in the start of a season-ending three-game series.

Vargas (10-13), who allowed five hits and had a career-best 10 strikeouts, won his final three decisions of the season to reach double-digit victories for the first time in his career. He also went over the 200-innings mark for the season.

"I've never had either of them happen. Two-hundred innings is what every starter shoots for (and) that kind of means that they're doing their job pretty good," Vargas said. "The wins are what they are, you really don't have control over that, but it is what it is."

Justin Smoak belted a three-run homer in the sixth inning off Brandon McCarthy (9-9), while Miguel Olivo added a solo shot in the fifth to help the Mariners end a four-game skid.

Hideki Matsui and Josh Willingham drove in the runs for the Athletics, losers in six of their last nine games.

McCarthy, who had six strikeouts, logged his fifth complete game of the year and third against Seattle.

Matsui singled in Jemile Weeks in the opening inning, but Olivo homered to left with one out in the fifth, and the Mariners went ahead in the sixth. Dustin Ackley and Mike Carp singled with two down before Smoak homered to right-center.

"(He) made one bad pitch today," A's manager Bob Melvin said of McCarthy. "I even thought the pitch to Olivo, he went out there and snatched it, it was middle away, (a) decent pitch. But the Smoak pitch was probably the one bad pitch he made, didn't quite get it in there enough. He really had a consistent season for us. I know he feels good about that."

Brandon League gave up an RBI groundout to Willingham in the ninth and then allowed a double to Scott Sizemore, but retired Kurt Suzuki on a ground ball to secure his 37th save of the year.

Game Notes

This marks the ninth consecutive season the Mariners will finish at home, and the third time in the last four years they'll end vs. the A's....Olivo's 19 homers are a Mariners record for a catcher...The A's swept a three- game set at home when these clubs last met, but the Mariners lead the season series, 10-7...Oakland's Adam Rosales snapped an 0-for-34 slump with a single in the eighth.






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