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Seattle Mariners

Furbush pitches M’s to sweep

Oakland Athletics left fielder Josh Willingham fields a fly ball from Seattle Mariners
Oakland Athletics left fielder Josh Willingham fields a fly ball from Seattle Mariners' Ichiro Suzuki in the first inning of a baseball game Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2011, in Seattle. The Mariners won 7-4. (Elaine Thompson / Associated Press)
Associated Press
SEATTLE — Newly acquired Charlie Furbush retired the first 13 batters in five strong innings and the Seattle Mariners swept past the Oakland Athletics 7-4 on Wednesday. Furbush (2-3), acquired Saturday in a four-player deal with Detroit, kept the damage minimal within his pitch-count framework. He had a perfect game through 4 1-3 innings before Conor Jackson ended it with a fifth-inning double off the left-field wall that was inches away from being a home run and needed a video review. Furbush matched his longest career outing and allowed one run and two hits with three strikeouts and no walks. It was his second big-league win, his first as a starter. Brandon League got the last two outs for his 26th save. Josh Bard had the biggest of the Mariners 14 hits, a 2-run single in the fourth off Gio Gonzalez (9-9), who is 1-4 with a 6.26 ERA in his last five starts. It was the third series sweep for the Mariners this season, the first since taking three from San Diego May 20-22. It also was their first sweep over Oakland since Sept. 29-Oct. 1, 2009. Trailing 7-1, the A’s rallied with Josh Willingham’s 3-run home run off Jeff Gray. Dan Cortes came in to get one out, but walked Scott Sizemore and League came in to get Adam Rosales on a pop up and Ryan Sweeney to ground out. Ichiro Suzuki had three singles, giving him 274 career hits against Oakland, second most ever by an opponent. He trails only Rod Carew (282). Suzuki is a .333 career hitter against the A’s. Casper Wells, who came along with Furbush from the Tigers, had a pair of hits and two RBI. Mike Carp had three hits and a pair of RBI. He’s now hitting .367 with six extra-base hits and 14 RBI in 14 games since being recalled on July 19. It was scoreless until Bard lashed his RBI single to center. The line shot barely averted Gonzalez’ glove wave. He punched the air after missing it. The Mariners added a couple more in the fifth on an RBI groundout by Carp and Wells’ single to score Dustin Ackley. Wells added a RBI single in the seventh and Carp drove in the final run in the eighth with a RBI single. A’s DH Hideki Matsui had a single in the ninth to extend his hitting streak to 12 games.