Colon, A’s ruin Seattle’s home opener with 4-0 win

SEATTLE (AP) – Bartolo Colon gave up just three hits in
seven shutout innings for his 16th career win against
Seattle, and the Oakland Athletics won 4-0 on Friday night
to ruin the Mariners’ home opener.

Making his third start already this season against
Seattle, Colon (2-1) rebounded from a shaky effort last
time out against the Mariners and beat them for the second
time in 2012. His first win over Seattle came during the
season-opening, two-game series played in Tokyo.

Felix Hernandez was wiggling free of trouble most of the
night. Cliff Pennington had an RBI double and Coco Crisp
an RBI single in the third. Jemile Weeks hit a solo home
run with two outs in the top of the ninth, his second
homer of the season.

Hernandez (1-1) gave up just the two runs in seven innings
but got no help from Seattle’s offense.

It was the first loss for Hernandez against Oakland since
September 18, 2008. He had won his previous six decisions
against the A’s.

Meanwhile, Colon improved to 10-1 with a 1.91 ERA at
Safeco Field. His 16 wins versus Seattle is the most of
any active pitcher in baseball. Colon struck out five and
walked one. Ryan Cook walked the first two batters of the
eighth, but got Chone Figgins to ground into a double play
to quell the threat.

Colon was rattled for 10 hits and seven earned runs by
Seattle last Saturday, but retired the final 10 batters on
Friday night after Seattle’s one threat in the fourth
inning. Ichiro Suzuki led off with a single and advanced
to third on Jesus Montero’s two-out hit, only to be
stranded when Michael Saunders struck out looking.

Colon retired the side in order in the fifth and sixth
innings then got a break leading off the seventh. Kyle
Seager lined the first pitch of the seventh into center
field. Yoenis Cespedes made a direct path to the sinking
liner and made a great diving catch. But on slow motion
television replay, it appeared that Cespedes trapped the
sinking liner.

Seager’s liner was one of the few hard-hit balls for
Seattle. Saunders just missed a three-run homer in the
fourth when his shot hooked foul. After showing some signs
of offensive progress during their long opening road trip
that stretched from Arizona to Japan and California to
Texas, the Mariners have scored just seven runs the last
43 innings.

Oakland’s runs in the fourth started with a broken bat
single by Daric Barton that bounded into right field. He
advanced to second on a weak groundout out then jogged
home on Pennington’s one-hop double off the wall in deep
right-center field. Pennington later scored when Crisp
singled to left. Figgins bobbled the hop on Crisp’s single
and that allowed Pennington to score when it appeared he
was stopping at third. Figgins was not charged with an
error.

Oakland added a run in the eighth off Seattle’s bullpen on
Kurt Suzuki’s sacrifice fly that scored Josh Reddick.

Notes: Former Seattle CF Mike Cameron threw out the
ceremonial first pitch and announced before the game he
was retiring as a Mariner. Cameron played for Seattle from
2000-03 and signed a ceremonial one-day employment
contract on Friday so that he could retire with the
Mariners. … Colon and Hernandez became the first
pitchers since Kevin Brown in 2004 to start the season
with three starts against the same team. … Seattle
announced a sellout of more than 46,000 for the opener but
empty seats were noticeable in the outfield bleachers and
in the 300 level above right field.

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