SEATTLE (AP) - Coco Crisp broke Oakland's 20-inning scoreless streak with an RBI double, Cliff Pennington and Kevin Kouzmanoff both later hit his first home run of the season and the Athletics' offense woke up in a 9-1 win over the Seattle Mariners on Saturday night.
Crisp's two-out double into the right-center field gap in the third inning off Seattle starter Jason Vargas (0-2) scored Mark Ellis with the A's first run since the ninth inning on Wednesday against Boston. The A's were shutout in the first two games of this series, the first time Oakland was held scoreless in consecutive games since May 2008.
There wasn't going to be a third straight shutout.
Oakland's Trevor Cahill (3-0) pitched six innings, giving up just one run and seven hits to the Mariners.
Cahill's third strong effort in five starts this season became a footnote on a night where the A's quieted a few of the questions about their struggling offense.
Oakland didn't just sit on a 4-1 lead thanks to Pennington's first homer of the season in the fourth, a two-run shot into the A's bullpen in left field. Oakland added five in the sixth inning, knocking Vargas from the game. The A's sent 10 batters to the plate, highlighted by Kouzmanoff waiting on reliever Josh Lueke's 1-2 breaking ball and hitting it just over the hand-operated scoreboard down the left field line for his second homer of the season.
Kouzmanoff finished with four RBIs - nearly doubling his season total entering the night. He got lucky in the fourth when his line drive to center field was misplayed on a diving attempt by Michael Saunders, who was in position on the dive to make an inning-ending grab, only to see the ball glance off the top of his mitt. It was ruled a single that scored Kurt Suzuki and Pennington made Seattle pay with a homer on the next pitch.
Crisp added another RBI double in the sixth inning and finished with three hits, after going hitless in his previous nine at-bats, and Conor Jackson had an RBI single as Oakland scored a season-high in runs.
That was more than Cahill needed, even though the right-hander wasn't at his best. Cahill escaped trouble in each of the first two innings, then settled down to retire 15 of his final 17 batters. He struck out two and walked only one.
Cahill was helped by his defense early, no play bigger than Suzuki fielding a short-hop relay throw from Ellis and tagging out Chone Figgins trying to score on Adam Kennedy's double in the first. Even after Figgins was cut down, Seattle had runners on second and third, but Cahill got Saunders to ground out to end the inning.
Seattle did get a two-out RBI single from Jack Wilson in the second, but Jackson made a diving grab in foul ground on Figgins' pop up to end that inning with two runners on.
Vargas saw his losing streak extended to nine straight decisions dating back to Aug. 14, 2010. He'll also have a nice bruise to remember this loss after taking a comebacker from Crisp off his leg in the first at-bat of the game. Vargas allowed six hits and six runs, watching his ERA climb to 5.53.
NOTES: Oakland's starting pitching has allowed just 10 earned runs in the last 58 innings pitched - a span of nine starts. ... Seattle RF Ichiro Suzuki went 3-for-4 to move his average back above .300 (.304). ... Seattle closer David Aardsma is schedule to throw at least one more rehab outing with Triple-A Tacoma - scheduled for Sunday - before a decision is made on if he'll rejoin the club. Aardsma has been recovering from offseason hip surgery.
