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A's, Mariners conclude set at Safeco Field

Apr 24, 2011 - 3:30 PM (Sports Network) - The Oakland Athletics hope to keep the runs coming when they close out a four-game series against the Seattle Mariners Easter Sunday at Safeco Field.

Oakland scored a season-best nine runs in a 9-1 drubbing of the Mariners in Saturday's tilt, as Kevin Kouzmanoff and Cliff Pennington both went deep and Coco Crisp collected three hits and two RBI. Kouzmanoff drove in four runs for the Athletics, who ended a three-game slide and won for the fourth time in seven contests.

A's starter Trevor Cahill pushed his mark to 3-0 with six innings of one-run ball and two strikeouts, while Brad Ziegler, Craig Breslow and Grant Balfour each threw a scoreless inning of relief to preserve the lopsided win.

"I didn't feel that great out there," Cahill said after the big win. "For them (hitters) to take some pressure off, score that many runs, definitely helped out a lot. Hopefully, we can get into a groove and score a lot more tomorrow and keep it going."

The Athletics will visit the Angels for three games following this series in the Pacific Northwest.

Brett Anderson will face the Mariners for the second time this season when he takes the ball for Oakland today. Anderson did not factor in the outcome of a 5-2 loss versus Seattle on April 2, as he held the opposition to a run and five hits in six innings.

Anderson, who is 5-3 with a 1.97 ERA in 11 career starts against Seattle, won his most recent start on Tuesday against Boston. In the 5-0 blanking of the Red Sox, the lefty tossed eight shutout innings and fanned eight batters, improving to 1-1 in four starts and lowering his ERA from 2.29 to 1.63.

Seattle will try to pick up the pieces of last night's debacle and hopes to earn a split of this set with a win Sunday.

The Mariners had won the first two tests by shutout performances, but couldn't get the bats going on Saturday. Jack Wilson drove in the lone run in the second inning and Ichiro Suzuki led the team with three hits.

"We made some mistakes in every area of the game today," said Seattle manager Eric Wedge. "Against a guy like Cahill, much less anybody at this level, you just can't do that. We got to do a better job of controlling damage."

Jason Vargas started for Wedge's team and suffered the loss for allowing six runs on six hits in five frames. The Mariners will begin a six-game road trip at Detroit and Boston following today's game.

After losing his first three starts of the 2011 campaign, Mariners hurler Doug Fister seems to have righted the ship and will shoot for consecutive winning appearances today versus the A's.

Fister ended the season-opening slide with a solid performance in Tuesday's 13-3 shellacking of Detroit, as he surrendered a pair of runs in 6 1/3 innings with a season-best seven strikeouts. He is 1-3 with a 3.60 ERA and lost to Oakland in his 2011 debut on April 3 at the Coliseum. He yielded three runs -- two earned -- and eight hits in 5 2/3 innings of a 7-1 setback.

The right-hander is 4-3 with a 2.93 ERA in eight career starts against the A's.

Seattle took two of three from the A's to open the year, but Oakland has won nine of the last 14 in the series, including six of the last eight at Safeco.