Athletics fall to Indians

By Joe Stiglich
Contra Costa Times

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CLEVELAND -- The first inning has been quite the tease for Athletics fans this season.

Oakland came out and put a quick run on the board Saturday night against Cleveland Indians right-hander Carl Pavano. But as has often been the case in 2009, they had trouble building on it during a 5-2 defeat at Progressive Field.

After Matt Holliday's sacrifice fly in the top of the first, the Athletics didn't cross the plate again until Orlando Cabrera's single in the seventh scored Mark Ellis. By then, the Indians had put up four runs against Athletics rookie Vin Mazzaro (2-3) and were in control.

Between the second and sixth innings, Oakland mustered just three hits off Pavano (7-7) and didn't advance a runner past second base.

"We've been jumping ahead. I don't know if their pitcher settles down or what not," A's catcher Kurt Suzuki said. ". . . We need to score more runs. I'm not making any excuses. We've been hitting balls, (but) they're making good plays against us too."

No argument there. Cleveland hasn't played like the American League's worst team over the first two games of this series.

They made several nice defensive plays Saturday. And after Shin-Soo Choo was Friday's offensive hero with seven RBI, it was Luis Valbuena and Ben Francisco -- Cleveland's 8-9 hitters -- who combined to go 6-for-6 with three runs and three RBIs.

Francisco hit a two-run homer off Mazzaro in the third, and Grady Sizemore belted a solo shot to dead center in the sixth.

As much as the A's have struggled to score this season, they've been fairly efficient in the first. They've scored in their first at-bat in 25 of 79 games, close to one-third of the time.

They've scored 44 first-inning runs, their second-highest output of any inning other than the fourth, when they've plated 52. But they entered Saturday as the AL's third-lowest scoring team with 328 total runs.

Adam Kennedy led off the game with a single, and Cabrera advanced him to third with a perfectly executed hit-and-run single to right.

After Holliday's sacrifice fly, the A's loaded the bases with two outs, but Indians third baseman Jhonny Peralta snared Ryan Sweeney's liner to end the inning.

"We had eight hits, but all singles," A's manager Bob Geren said. "A couple homers for them made a big difference. Keeping the ball in the ballpark is a good recipe for a pitcher, and Carl Pavano did that to us tonight."

Mazzaro allowed 10 hits and five earned runs in six-plus innings. He failed to register a strikeout after striking out a career-high eight in his previous outing against Colorado.