Sonny Gray stellar again as Oakland A's beat Seattle Mariners

Posted: 04/12/2014 09:27:09 PM PDT

Updated: 04/12/2014 09:42:41 PM PDT

SEATTLE -- Coco Crisp celebrated his return to the Oakland lineup by reaching base on an infield hit and a walk Saturday and scored twice as the A's beat the Mariners 3-1 behind the pitching of Sonny Gray.

Crisp, who had missed the previous four games after needing a cortisone injection in his left wrist last Sunday, came home when Josh Donaldson homered in the first off Erasmo Ramirez. After Crisp led off the third with a walk, he came around to score on a Brandon Moss hit.

That was all Gray would need. He was dinged by back-to-back singles to open the bottom of the first and a subsequent run-scoring grounder by the Mariners' Robinson Cano, but settled in nicely after that.

At one point he retired 11 batters in succession before giving up a walk and a single with two out in the fourth. He came back to strike out Dustin Ackley and went on to record five of the next seven outs by strikeout.

Gray, now 2-0 this season, is 3-0 career against the Mariners after allowing one run in seven innings before turning the game over to the bullpen. He was facing them for the second time in a week and allowed just two earned runs in the process. His ERA, 0.75 coming into the game, now sits at 0.95.

With six of the next seven Seattle batters left-handed, the A's went with lefty Sean Doolittle in the eighth inning, when he needed nine pitches (seven strikes) to throw a clean inning. He collected the first out of the ninth, then when the Mariners went to a right-handed pinch-hitter, Willie Bloomquist, A's manager Bob Melvin asked Luke Gregerson to get the last two outs.

Gregerson gave up two hits, then a strikeout and a grounder earned him the save.

To get to that point, the A's had to thank Donaldson. His bat is starting to warm. The third baseman came into the game with a five-game hitting streak in which he was 8-for-23 (.348) with three doubles and a homer, all of the extra-base hits going to right or right-center.

Not so his homer, which he pulled to straightaway left field to five Oakland its first two runs.

In the third, Crisp and Jed Lowrie walked, and after Donaldson's grounder got Crisp to third base, Moss singled.

Still, the A's should have done more against Erasmo Ramirez, who started the game, and Dominic Leone. Ramirez allowed a leadoff double to Albert Callaspo in the second, but the A's couldn't advance him. A leadoff single in the fourth and leadoff walk in the fifth with Ramirez on the mound went nowhere.

Eric Sogard singled and stole seventh off Leone, but the A's couldn't get Sogard further than third base.

Yoenis Cespedes made a major gaffe when he didn't realize his line drive to left in the sixth was dropped by Dustin Ackley as the outfield moved to transfer the ball to his throwing hand. The interpretation of the rule this year is that's an error, but Cespedes turned and headed back to the A's dugout where his teammates were yelling for him to get back to first base. The A's made a long-awaited roster move when the active outfielder Craig Gentry from the disabled list after he'd missed all of the Cactus League this spring with back pain. To make room for Gentry, who pinch-hit in the ninth, on the roster, the team put outfielder Sam Fuld on the designated for assignment list, meaning the club has 10 days to trade him, release him or try to get him through waivers. The club almost will certainly lose him to a waiver claim, but Oakland now has the outfield it wants with Gentry the No. 4 man. ``He's a really good end-game player, pinch-hitting, base running,'' manager Bob Melvin said. ``That's one of the reasons we targeted him.'' Crisp was back in the lineup Saturday for the first time in five games. ``He came to me after BP yesterday and said `I'm ready,' Melvin said. ``That's all I needed to hear from him. He is pretty aware of his body, he has played through some injuries, and he knows what is more serious than others. I rely on what he has to tell me and that feedback.'' Crisp had the cortisone injected last Sunday and the A's have been playing it by ear as to when he'd get back into the lineup. The original hope was for Thursday in Minnesota or Friday in Seattle, but the club wanted to make sure he was not going to be rushed. Gregerson said very little will change for him even knowing that the ninth inning could be his with Jim Johnson taken out of the closer's role for the time being. ``When you pitch at the end of the game, you're going to face the same hitters,'' he said. ``I'm not going to be doing anything any differently if I faced the middle of the lineup in the ninth inning than I would if I was facing them in the eighth.'' Callaspo's start as the DH Saturday was his fifth this year. He'd only done it 11 times in his first 860 career games. He said he'd like to play in the field, but he's trying to get used to the role. He was hitting .412 as a DH coming in, then doubled in his first at-bat. As manager Bob Melvin said, ``right now, he's our best hitter.''

For more on the A's, see John Hickey's Inside the A's blog at http://ift.tt/1ldGv3B. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/JHickey3.

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