OAKLAND, Calif. _ The Seattle Mariners got a brilliant start and the minimal amount of run support needed to pick up a victory.
Marco Gonzales delivered the best outing of his career against the Oakland A's in a 1-0 win Wednesday night.
The young left-hander pitched seven shutout innings, allowing just two hits with two walks and six strikeouts. Gonzales was brilliant. The two hits both came off the bat of Jed Lowrie, and one was an infield single. The only trouble he had in his outing was self-made and came in the fourth inning after the Mariners had provided him with a 1-0 lead. Gonzales opened the bottom of the fourth by walking Chad Pinder and Lowrie, which is less than ideal. But he didn't panic. He got Matt Chapman to line out to center. And with runners on first and third and one out, he struck out Mark Canha for the key out of the inning. With two outs, Gonzales coaxed a pop fly to left out of Matt Chapman to end the inning.
Gonzales retired 12 of the last 13 batters he faced.
The Mariners mustered only one run against A's starter Daniel Gossett. Guillermo Heredia doubled to left to start the inning. He later scored on Kyle Seager's ground ball to shortstop.
Seattle might have had two more runs if not for the defensive heroics of right fielder Stephen Piscotty.
In the third inning, Mike Zunino lifted a high fly ball to right field that seemed destined to carry over the fence for a solo homer. But Piscotty didn't allow that to happen. He made a brilliant leaping grab to rob Zunino of a homer.
In the seventh inning with Ben Gamel on second base, Piscotty made a tough sliding grab on John Andreoli's sinking line drive to prevent another run from scoring.
But it wasn't just the A's making run-saving plays. In the eighth inning with Juan Nicasio on the mound, Andreoli, who was making his big-league debut after being called up earlier in the day, made a nice running/lunging grab on what would've been a leadoff double off the bat of Jonathan Lucroy.
And then with one out and pinch-runner Dustin Fowler attempting to steal, Zunino made a spectacular throw to second despite getting an awful pitch to receive and throw on. Zunino made up for it by getting rid of the ball quickly, with his throw beating the speedy Fowler.
