Seattle at Oakland

Due to playing in Japan, the A's and Mariners have split their two games thus far in what amounts to a fragmented four-game series reaches game 3 tonight. Jason Vargas picked up where he left off last year, holding the A's in check allowing 1 run over 6.1 innings vs. the A's in part one of this series. That puts Vargas at 2 runs allowed vs. the A's in his last 14.1 innings against them. Oakland will go with Brandon McCarthy who pitched well enough to win in the first part of this series, but has now seen the A's drop each of his last two starts vs. the M's. The Mariners have done a good job in their last six series openers at 5-1, while the inconsistency of McCarthy has seen the A's plummet to 4-12 in his next start, following a quality start in his last outing. Play on Seattle.