Athletics Edge Out Marlins 3-2 in Tight Finale

Escaping Florida with a pair of wins

The A’s won a close game on Sunday afternoon down in Florida, using a late ninth-inning rally to beat the Miami Marlins 3-2 and end this road trip on a winning note.

Taking the hill for the A’s in the finale was lefty JP Sears. The team’s most consistent pitcher this year, Sears entered the game with a 2.94 ERA and with quality starts in all but one of his six starts this season. Looking to continue that streak Sears allowed a leadoff single to the first batter of the game and then proceeded to strike out the final two batters of the first and strand the baserunner on third to escape the frame unscored upon. Those strikeouts began a streak of 11 straight batters Sears would sit down as he rolled early against the Marlins.

On the other side of the ball the Athletics hitters were going up against Miami right-hander Edward Cabrera, who entered this game with an ugly 7.23 ERA over his first four starts. The A’s didn’t wait around long to get to work against the 27-year-old, scoring twice in the second inning off of Gio Urshela’s ninth double of the season:

That hit brought left fielder Miguel Andujar and shortstop Jacob Wilson around to cross home plate and gave the A’s the early lead. The next batter tried to keep the line moving as backup catcher Jhonny Pereda collected a base hit but Marlins center fielder Dane Myers made a great throw to nab Urshela trying to score.

Back to Sears, the 29-year-old ran into his only trouble of the day in the fourth when back-to-back singles brought up Myers for the Marlins. The center fielder who had just thrown out a baserunner at home plate a couple innings prior hurt the A’s again and knocked both runners in on a 2-run double. Sears would finish the frame and finish his day sitting down eight straight batters, pitching into the seventh inning for the team before making way for the bullpen:

• JP Sears: 6 ¹⁄₃ IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 80 pitches

Yet another quality start from the machine as Sears posted his sixth quality start in seven starts this season, and he was efficient with his pitch count as well at just 80 pitches. He’s still yet to allow more than three runs in any one of his starts and even with two runs allowed he managed to drop his ERA a single point today, down to 2.93 through 40 innings. The lefty spoke after the game about his strong outing:

He’ll take that sub-3 mark into his next scheduled start against the New York Yankees next weekend at home. There’s no doubt that will be the toughest text for the lefty this year but he’s on a roll so confidence is high. Right-hander Mitch Spence took over and finished the seventh and eighth innings while allowing just one single.

It was starting to get late and one of these teams would need to break through, but who would blink first? It would be the Marlins in the top of the ninth with the pressure at its highest. After shutting down the Athletics for the past six innings the bullpen gave away the lead when Nick Kurtz hit his first career triple and a pinch-hitting Tyler Soderstrom brought him in with a base knock:

After not starting the day in the lineup for his first day off Soderstrom still came in and made a huge impact in this contest. Does he really need off-days, Kotsay?

The Athletics now had a lead. A slim one, but a lead. One day after seeing Mason Miller blow his first save of the season the A’s turned to a new face to nail down the win. Right-handed setup man Tyler Ferguson instead got his first true save opportunity of the season today and he was nails. Facing the heart of the Marlins’ lineup he sat them down in order, finishing the game off with a strikeout of their best hitter Kyle Stowers. Always fun ending a game with a strikeout:

The A’s came to Miami and took two of three, which was the minimum they needed to do this weekend and only a late meltdown yesterday prevented the sweep. Add in the previous series in Texas and the Athletics went a very successful 5-2 on this road trip and now sit at 19-16 as they head back home to Sacramento in second place in the AL West.

The club will be home for the next week as they begin a critical home stand that will see two first-place clubs come to town. First up will be a three-game series against the division-leading Seattle Mariners, who are a 20-13 with a mere 2-game lead in the division. A series sweep would thrust the Green & Gold into first place so there’s plenty of motivation for this young squad. The Athletics will send veteran righty Luis Severino to the mound to make his eighth start of the season while their rivals will march out third-year righty Bryce Miller to take on the A’s and begin this important series.