Final Score: Mariners 1, A's 0
I was hoping that this Easter would be a lot more "Holliday" for the A's offense and not one full of goose eggs, but it was not to be. While the team has certainly struggled to push runs across the plate in the early season thus far, no more was this fact evident than today, as the A's truly failed to threaten the Mariners in any way until the "tease me, but don't please me" 9th inning, which had Jack Cust a few feet left or right away from tying or winning the ball game.
What initially looked like could be an outing of shaky control by Trevor Cahill as he posted three walks turned into what could easily be deemed the best A's pitching show on the early campaign. He went into the 7th inning without giving up a single base hit, and gave up his one run thanks to Rajai Davis' Byrnes-like approach to a center field drive which fell for an RBI double off the bat of Mike "didn't he use to play for us?" Sweeney.
As impressive as Cahill was in forcing 12 ground ball outs to go with 6 fly outs and 3 K's was the A's early defense, who turned a pair of double plays when runners reached. But Cahill would likely have needed to complete his no hitter to keep the A's in the ballgame, as the offense notched a measly three scattered singles and a pair of walks against the M's slingers.
Yes, the A's only have one home run on the season (Cust yesterday). But they didn't even post a double today, and they only got two runners to second base all game. (Holliday in the second and Sweeney in the 9th) The equation of no power, plus a low average, and outs in the few situations that had potential, sent the A's back to the dugout not having scored, completing the Mariners' 3-game sweep.
As for Cahill, despite early misgivings within our initial game thread, he leaves with an accumulative ERA of 2.25 (and a Loss).
