Oakland native Bryan Woo continued his career-long mastery of his former hometown team with eight shutout innings, Cal Raleigh and J.P. Crawford had RBI singles in a two-run fourth, and the Seattle Mariners avoided a four-game sweep at the hands of the visiting Athletics with a 2-0 victory Sunday afternoon.
The win, coupled with a Houston Astros (73-71) loss, allowed the Mariners (67-77) to move within six games of the top spot in the American League West.
Woo and rival left-hander Gage Jump traded zeroes into the bottom of the fourth, when Dominic Canzone and Julio Rodriguez set the stage for the Mariners’ scoring with inning-opening singles.
Raleigh followed with a single to give Seattle a 1-0 lead, after which Crawford produced a fourth straight hit for a 2-0 advantage.
After Josh Naylor singled to load the bases with no outs, Jump (6-10) struck out three consecutive batters to keep the deficit at two, then was pulled from the game. He allowed two runs and six hits in four innings, striking out seven.
Woo (11-9) took it from there. He allowed just three baserunners — a fourth-inning single by Henry Bolte and fifth- and eighth-inning walks to Donovan Walton — and struck out nine in his 102-pitch effort. Andres Munoz threw a 1-2-3 ninth for his 25th save.
Despite allowing no runs in a start for the eighth time this season, the combined shutout was just Woo’s second of the year. It was his first time pitching more than seven innings this season.
The victory improved his lifetime record against the A’s to 6-1 in 11 starts.
Randy Arozarena had two hits for the Mariners.
Seattle only has two games remaining against teams with winning records — those coming in a home series against the first-place Astros to open the final week of the regular season.
The shutout loss was the ninth of the season for the A’s (57-87), who were shooting to match the season-best five-game winning streak they recorded in April.
All eight hits in the game were singles.
