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A's hope to stay hot at home vs. Marlins

Jun 29, 2011 - 2:56 PM (Sports Network) - Oakland's offense continues to struggle at the plate, but if there is one team it can get away with a lack of offense, it is the Florida Marlins.

The Athletics take aim at a seventh straight home victory tonight, while the Marlins' Ricky Nolasco hopes to win for the first time in over a month in the second contest of a three-game series at the Coliseum.

Oakland has been held to two runs or fewer in five of its last six games, but picked up its second victory in that span with last night's 1-0 victory. Gio Gonzalez took his offense off the hook by allowing just one hit over his eight-inning outing.

Gonzalez retired 13 straight batters after allowing a leadoff single to start the game and also walked three batters while striking out nine.

"Performance wise, that's the best I've seen him pitch," said interim A's manager Bob Melvin, who took over three weeks ago. "It ranks right up there as one of the best-pitched games by a starter since I've been here."

Kurt Suzuki knocked in the only run with a sacrifice fly off Marlins starter Javier Vazquez (4-8) in the second inning as Florida lost its 14th straight one-run game.

The Marlins also fell to 2-5 under interim manager Jack McKeon and to 3-23 in a dreadful June. It was of little fault of Vazquez after he gave up just one unearned run over seven innings.

"It's unexplainable right now," Vazquez said on Florida's website. "I wish we had an explanation. We were playing such good baseball in the first couple months. We were playing good defense and doing the right things, and right now it seems like we're doing something wrong that costs us the game, most of those games. It's tough to explain."

Florida's 23 losses in June are a franchise record for the most in a single month and Nolasco will try to prevent that number from getting any bigger as he hopes for his first victory since May 24.

The right-hander has lost four decisions in six starts since last finding the win column, with the Marlins going 0-6 in that span. Nolasco dropped his third straight start on Friday versus Seattle despite a solid outing that saw him give up three runs on four hits and two walks over seven innings of a 5-1 decision.

Nolasco fell to 4-4 with a 4.44 earned run average in 16 starts and will face the A's for the second time in his career. The 28-year-old got a no-decision in the first meeting, yielding three runs over seven innings.

Graham Godfrey will look to bounce back from his first major-league start as he goes for Oakland.

The 26-year-old, who makes his fourth career start, won his first game on June 17 after besting the Giants, but then suffered a loss to the Mets on Thursday after yielding four runs -- two earned -- on six hits and two walks over 5 2/3 innings. The right-handed Godfrey fell to 1-1 with a 4.24 ERA.

"My stuff was good enough, but it doesn't meet my expectations," Godfrey told Oakland's website. "I was working deep counts and leaving some balls up."

The A's and Marlins came into this series having split six all-time meetings, with Oakland taking two of three at home in the last meeting in 2008.