Dylan Moore homered and drove in five runs as the Seattle Mariners defeated the visiting Oakland Athletics 8-1 Friday night in the opener of a three-game series.
The Mariners snapped a two-game skid, while the A’s lost for the fifth time in six games.
Oakland avoided the shutout thanks to Lawrence Butler’s RBI broken-bat grounder up the middle with two outs in the ninth inning off Austin Voth. The hit scored Kyle McCann, who had singled with one out and moved to second on a single by Tyler Soderstrom.
Mariners right-hander Bryan Woo, making his season debut, left after 4 1/3 scoreless innings due to precautionary reasons, the club said. Woo, who threw 62 pitches, missed the start of the campaign because of right elbow inflammation.
Woo allowed just one hit, a two-out single by former Mariner Abraham Toro in the third. Woo walked one and struck out three, leaving with a 5-0 lead just two outs shy of qualifying for the win.
Trent Thornton (1-1) pitched 1 1/3 innings of shutout relief for the victory.
The Mariners broke a scoreless tie by scoring five times off A’s right-hander Paul Blackburn (3-2) in the fourth inning.
Blackburn, who had allowed just one hit to that point, walked Mitch Haniger and Cal Raleigh to open the inning. With one out, Luke Raley lined a double to center to break the tie. Ty France followed with a two-run double down the left field line. Moore then lined an 0-1 slider just over the fence in left to make it 5-0.
Haniger led off the fifth by lining a single to center, Raleigh grounded a single to right and Mitch Garver walked, ending Blackburn’s night. Reliever Tyler Ferguson got two outs before Moore lined a two-run single to left to extend the lead to 7-0.
Blackburn was charged with seven runs on seven hits in four-plus innings, with three walks and five strikeouts.
In the seventh, Raley drew a one-out walk off Eason Lucas and France grounded a single to left. Moore greeted reliever Michael Kelly with an RBI single to center to make it 8-0.
–Field Level Media