James Kaprielian continued to pitch brilliantly as a fill-in starter and Matt Olson clubbed his 13th home run of the season Wednesday afternoon to allow the Oakland Athletics to salvage one win in their three-game series against the visiting Seattle Mariners with a 6-3 victory.
Seth Brown continued his hot hitting with a single, a double and two RBIs for the A’s, who had lost three in a row.
A former first-round draft choice who was acquired by the A’s from the New York Yankees in a package for Sonny Gray in 2017, Kaprielian (2-0) shut out the Mariners on two hits over seven innings. He struck out four and walked two.
The seven-inning stint was the longest of his career. He had totaled just 14 1/3 innings in four previous major league appearances over two seasons, including two previous starts this year in which he held Boston to one run in five innings and the Los Angeles Angels to two runs in 5 2/3 innings.
The A’s are now 3-0 in his starts.
Oakland never trailed in the game, scoring six times in the first four innings, including five runs off Mariners starter Robert Dugger (0-1) in 3 1/3 innings.
Dugger walked two of the first three batters he faced before a ground-rule double by Brown and a sacrifice fly by Matt Chapman put Oakland up 2-0 in the first.
Olson’s homer came leading off the third, before the A’s busted the game wide open and knocked out Dugger with a three-run fourth.
Olson’s sacrifice fly and RBI singles by Ramon Laureano and Brown — all off reliever Wyatt Mills after Dugger had left with two runners aboard — accounted for the fourth-inning runs.
Dugger was charged with five runs on five hits in his 3 1/3 innings. He walked three and struck out one.
Seeking to equal a season-best three-game winning streak, the Mariners made noise in the eighth when singles by Eric Campbell and Jose Godoy, a run-scoring infield out by Jarred Kelenic, an RBI double by Mitch Haniger and an RBI single by Kyle Seager produced three runs against A’s reliever Yusmeiro Petit and brought the potential tying run to the plate with just one out.
But Petit got Kyle Lewis to fly out and Jake Diekman struck out J.P. Crawford to retain the 6-3 lead.
Diekman stayed on for a scoreless ninth to register his sixth save, getting Kelenic to pop out with two on to end it.
Olson had two RBIs, Elvis Andrus two hits and Mark Canha two runs scored for the A’s.
Haniger collected two hits for Seattle.
–Field Level Media