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Batista, Mariners shut out Athletics

Sep 18, 2007 - 6:42 AM By Ryan Leong PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

OAKLAND, California (Ticker) -- Miguel Batista pitched 6 1/3 shutout innings to outduel Oakland ace Dan Haren, as the Seattle Mariners edged the Oakland Athletics, 4-0, on Monday night.

Jose Lopez hit a three-run homer for the Mariners, who are just 6-17 since the team was 20 games over .500 on August 24. Seattle (79-70) is 6 1/2 games back of the New York Yankees (86-64) in the wild card race.

Batista (14-11) was winless in his last five starts, going 0-3 with a 7.48 ERA, but he has pitched well at McAfee Coliseum where he is 4-1 in his career. The righthander struck out six and allowed five hits and four walks.

"That's a nice way to start the road trip," Seattle manager John McLaren said. "We're trying to play solid baseball every night and finish strong. Whatever happens, happens and just go out and play solid baseball every single night. That's all we're trying to do, leave it on the field and that's our goal every game."

Haren (14-8) didn't pitch badly going eight innings, allowing 10 hits and four runs. However, the All-Star remained winless in his last five outings dating to August 21, and Haren hasn't won a home game since beating Justin Verlander and the Detroit Tigers on July 31.

"I'm tinkering on a fine line of being too aggressive and challenging too much, rather than falling behind," Haren said. "Today I was pretty aggressive, I gave up a few hits but also got a lot of early outs which led to me getting deeper in the game. I kept us in it. The home run obviously was a big blow but what are you going to do?"

Oakland manager Bob Geren was encouraged by the outing from Haren despite the loss.

"It looked like vintage Dan Haren, all his pitches were working," Geren said. "It was just one pitch he wishes he had back. Those two runners on base were on a ground ball and a little one-handed single and then one home run turns into three runs but there was only one ball really struck that well."

Seattle took the lead in the fifth. Kenji Johjima reached on an infield single to third and the errant throw by Jack Hannahan allowed Johjima to advance to second. Yuniesky Betancourt's RBI single to right scored the game's first run.

In the seventh, the Mariners added three more runs on three straight hits. Jose Vidro singled to left, Johjima singled to center and Lopez belted a high arching drive to left field for a four-run cushion.

"As soon as I hit it I knew it was gone," said Lopez, who had not hit a home run since July 8 at Oakland. "Especially late in the game being up 1-0, three runs is huge."

The Mariners improved to 12-5 against the Athletics this season. By comparison, Seattle was 2-17 against Oakland in 2006.