Piazza leads Oakland over Seattle

Sep 12, 2007, 5:41 GMT

Seattle, WA - Mike Pizza was 3-for-5 with a pair of doubles and two runs batted in as Oakland downed Seattle, 7-4, at Safeco Field.

Shannon Stewart also drove in two runs for the Athletics, who won the first two games of this series and will go for the sweep on Wednesday. Mark Ellis was 4-for-5 with a run scored and an RBI in the win.

'It's very big,' Stewart said of the win. 'We haven't been playing well and neither have they but somebody has to win the series and I am glad we won the first two games.'

Dallas Braden started on the hill for Oakland and surrendered four runs on eight hits in 4 1/3 innings. Ruddy Lugo (6-0) got the win after tossing 1 1/3 innings of scoreless relief.

Adrian Beltre homered for the reeling for the Mariners, who have dropped 15 of 17 games and now find themselves a virtually insurmountable 6 1/2 games behind the New York Yankees in the AL wild card race. Jose Vidro was 2-for-3 with an RBI.

Jarrod Washburn (9-14) was touched for six runs on eight hits in 5 2/3 innings of work to pick up the loss.

With the game tied, Oakland took control with a three run, two-out rally in the sixth. Stewart singled to right and moved to second when Daric Barton walked. The Mariners went to the bullpen at that point and brought in Eric O'Flaherty, who walked the only batter he faced, Nick Swisher. Sean Green entered and promptly gave up a two-run single to Piazza before Mark Ellis finally capped the frame with another RBI single to make it 7-4.

The Mariners threatened in the seventh and had the bases loaded with two down but Andrew Brown fanned Yuniesky Betancourt to end the inning.

Alan Embree and Huston Street finished things from there with an inning of scoreless relief apiece. Street earned his 14th save of the year.

The Mariners jumped on top thanks to Beltre's one-out, solo homer in the third, his 24th of the season.

Oakland finally got to Washburn in the fourth with a four-run frame. Piazza led off with a double and moved to third on Ellis' base hit before Washburn issued consecutive walks to Marco Scutaro, Donnie Murphy and Kurt Suzuki to force in a pair of runs. Then, after Kevin Thompson flied out, Stewart slapped a two-run single up the middle to make it a 4-1 game.

M's manager John McLaren was ejected after Washburn issued the free pass to Murphy for arguing balls and strikes.

'It's frustrating the way we have been playing,' McLaren said. 'I just want the team to know I wasn't giving up on them but it's frustrating.'

Seattle got back in the game with three runs in the fifth. Ichiro Suzuki singled to left, advanced to second on a balk and scored when Raul Ibanez singled to right. Jose Guillen kept things going with another base hit and Kenji Johjima followed with an RBI single to right-center. The A's had seen enough of Braden at that point and went to Lugo but Vidro greeted him with a fielder's choice to even things at four.

Game Notes

Johjima left the game in the sixth inning with an apparent left hand injury. The catcher was hit by Murphy while trying to break up a potential double play at second base...Ellis matched his career-high with four hits but committed an error for the first time in 103 games.

© 2007 The Sports Network

Game Notes

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