 | The Florida Marlins left-hander,Dontrelle Willis, pitched seven innings, outdueling Ted Lilly in a 2-0 victory over the Oakland Athletics.
Willis (4-1), an Oakland native who grew up an Athletics fan, gave up five hits. He struck out four and walked three. Lilly (3-4) also pitched well for seven innings. He allowed two runs on six hits, with one walk and eight strikeouts. "It is tough to lose games like that, but throughout the course of a season you're going to have those games when you get outpitched," said Lilly. "That guy pitched a hell of a ballgame. He got himself in trouble a couple of times, but he pitched his way out of it." |
The Athletics put runners on second and third with no outs in the eighth against Vladimir Nunez. Looper retired Miguel Tejada on a groundout to first and, working around an intentional walk, struck out Jermaine Dye and Ramon Hernandez.
Oakland had not been shut out since a 1-0, 10-inning loss to Anaheim on Sept. 17, 2002.
Willis also had one of the Marlins' seven hits, a broken-bat single to right in the fifth.
Alex Gonzalez drove in the first run of the game with a two-out single in the second inning and scored the other run in the seventh.
The Marlins took two out of three games in the series. Oakland has the best record in the majors in interleague play (67-40) since it began in 1997, while the Marlins have the third-best mark at 63-42.
The Marlins took advantage of a couple of Oakland mistakes for both of their runs.
Mike Lowell led off the second with a single, advanced on Lilly's balk and scored with two outs when Gonzalez hit a line drive just over the reach of Tejada at shortstop.
Florida's second run came after Gonzalez walked. Hernandez, the catcher, had his return throw to Lilly after ball four go into center field, putting Gonzalez on second. Pinch-hitter Brian Banks had an RBI single with two outs.
