SEATTLE — Fighting through the pain in his left shoulder and the worst slump of his career, Abraham Toro has found a little optimism for him and the Mariners.
Toro’s hard line drive to right-center in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded gave the Mariners a 2-1 walk-off victory Saturday afternoon at T-Mobile Park.
Eugenio Suarez worked a leadoff walk off right-hander Lou Trivino. Carlos Santana advanced him to third with a single through the right side. With the A’s moving an outfielder to the infield, Cal Raleigh reached on a fielding error to load the bases for Toro, who came into the game hitting .177 on the season.
After a shaky first inning where he walked Tony Kemp, the first batter of the game, who later scored on a sacrifice fly to right field, an irritated George Kirby went into shut-down mode.
This wouldn’t be a repeat of his previous outing where he allowed seven runs, as that one run was all the A’s were going to get against him.
Kirby pitched the next six innings scoreless, allowing just two hits and retiring 13 straight batters at one point.
Even after Kirby allowed a leadoff single to Sean Murphy to start the seventh inning, Mariners manager Scott Servais allowed his starter to remain in the game even with his pitch limit nearing. Kirby came back to strike out Stephen Piscotty, get veteran left-handed hitter Stephen Vogt to pop out in foul territory and switch-hitter Skye Bolt to end the inning with a flyball to left field.
Kirby’s final line: seven innings pitched, one run allowed on four hits with a walk and nine strikeouts. He threw a season-high 100 pitches with 71 strikes.
Kirby’s teammates rewarded the outstanding effort by offering no run support while he was on the mound. A’s starter Paul Blackburn, who pitched 5 1/3 shutout innings to beat Seattle on May 25th and gave up seven runs on 10 hits in a loss in Oakland on June 22, returned to his early-season form. Blackburn, who was once briefly in the Mariners farm system before being traded for Danny Valencia, tossed 6 1/3 scoreless innings, allowing four hits with a walk and five strikeouts, on Saturday.
The Mariners finally broke through against the A’s awful bullpen, though.
With one out in the eighth inning, Servais called on Justin Upton to pinch hit against A’s hard-throwing lefty A.J. Puk. The strategy proved ideal. Upton ripped the first pitch he saw from Puk into Edgar’s Cantina for his first homer of the season, tying the game at 1-1.
