Cal Raleigh hit his 32nd home run, and Bryan Woo struck out eight batters over five innings as the Seattle Mariners defeated the Oakland Athletics 2-0 on Friday night.
Mitch Garver also hit a home run for the Mariners, just one day after Seattle was knocked out of the postseason race. Oakland was coming off an emotional day after their last scheduled home game at the Coliseum, where they won 3-2 against Texas.
Woo (9-3) allowed only three hits and one walk during his outing.
“It was kind of a weird 24 hours,” Woo said. “Knowing you’re out of it, but you still want to finish strong. For yourself, for the team, for the fans, for everybody. Everybody else deserves that out of you and so you’ve got to find it in yourself to give it everything you have.”
This season, Woo has tallied 101 strikeouts in 121 1/3 innings. This game marked the seventh time in his 22 starts that he did not give up a run.
“He had five really strong innings today,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “What an incredible season for another one of our young starters. I thought he had a great year and threw the ball well tonight.”
Oakland’s starter, JP Sears (11-13), gave up two runs on four hits over six innings.
The Mariners began their last three-game series of the season after their playoff hopes officially ended on an off day, during which the Royals and Tigers both won, eliminating Seattle from wild-card contention.
The Mariners had a 10-game lead in the AL West in June, but a slump caused that lead to disappear over a month. A late push gave Seattle a bit of hope for the postseason, but it was finally extinguished on Thursday.
Despite this, the crowd of 41,429 was in good spirits, especially when Garver put Seattle ahead 1-0 with his 15th home run leading off the second inning.
