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Athletics-Mariners Preview

Oct 1, 2010 - 6:26 AM By MATT BEARDMORE STATS Writer

Oakland (78-81) at Seattle (61-98), 10:10 p.m. EDT

Despite a late-season slide, the Oakland Athletics still have a chance to finish second in the AL West and with a .500 record.

Giving the ball to Trevor Cahill could help the A's move closer to that happening.

Looking to become the club's first 18-game winner in eight seasons, Cahill goes for his first career victory against the Seattle Mariners on Friday night when Oakland tries to win back-to-back road games for the first time in more than a month.

While the A's (78-81) will miss the postseason for the fourth straight year, three more victories will give them their first non-losing season since winning the West in 2006. That was also the last time Oakland didn't finish third or last in the division.

After Los Angeles lost earlier Thursday at West champion Texas, Oakland moved into a second-place divisional tie by defeating Seattle 8-1 to end a season-high six-game losing streak.

"No matter where you are in the standings, you always want to finish strong," shortstop Cliff Pennington told the A's website earlier this week.

Going for consecutive road wins for the first time since Aug. 28-29, the A's will look for a quality start from Cahill (17-8, 3.08 ERA), who delivered one of his worst performances of the year in the Sunday's home finale.

Trying to win his seventh straight home start and become Oakland's first 18-game winner since Barry Zito (23-5) and Mark Mulder (19-7) in 2002, the 22-year-old right-hander lasted a season-low four innings in Sunday's 16-9 loss to the Rangers.

Cahill surrendered seven runs and a career-high 12 hits after entering the game with the majors' best home ERA at 1.63.

"I made some good pitches and they those and I made some mistakes and they hit those," he said. "It was one of those days I didn't have my stuff. I wasn't sharp and they were just crushing me."

Cahill, 0-3 with a 3.80 ERA in four starts versus Seattle in 2009, will try to push the Mariners (61-98) closer to their second 100-loss season in three years.

Seattle continues the season-closing series with Luke French (5-6, 4.20) on the mound. The left-hander, who went five innings in Sunday's 6-2 win at Tampa Bay to avoid losing his third straight decision, is 0-2 with a 6.35 ERA in two starts against Oakland this season.

Ichiro Suzuki, who has a major league-best 210 hits, is batting .357 during a 10-game hitting versus Oakland. Suzuki is 4 for 8 against Cahill.

A's center fielder Rajai Davis had his fourth four-hit game of the season - and second in the last five games - on Thursday. Davis, who is batting .432 in the last nine games versus Seattle, has five hits in 11 at-bats against French.