Sears caps off standout opening series for A’s rotation
Starters combine to allow 3 earned runs, strike out 26 in 4 games in Seattle
SEATTLE – Opening the 2025 season by splitting a series on the road against an American League West foe, especially one that swept them over the final three games of 2024, would have been a solid enough statement for the Athletics.
That’s why, as frustrating as it was to miss out on starting a season with a record 3-1 for the first time since 2020, the A’s took the positives from a four-game split with the Mariners following Sunday’s 2-1 loss at T-Mobile Park.
“We had a chance to win all four games,” manager Mark Kotsay said. “First night, tough loss. Last two games, we played well and came out on top. Today, one at-bat changed the game.”
The A’s were essentially an inning and a pitch away from a four-game sweep. Thursday’s season opener was undone by a one-run lead squandered by José Leclerc, who surrendered a pair of backbreaking eighth-inning home runs.
On Sunday, starter JP Sears was masterful outside of one sixth-inning slider left over the zone that Julio Rodríguez hammered for a two-run blast, flipping a one-run A’s lead to a one-run deficit.
“He threw the ball really well outside of the one pitch to J-Rod,” Kotsay said of Sears. “Tough loss for him. The result doesn’t show how well he threw the ball today.”
The starting rotation has been on a run of excellence to begin the season. From Luis Severino’s six scoreless innings on Opening Day to Sears’ 6 2/3 innings of two-run ball on Sunday, A’s starters have combined for just three earned runs on 14 hits with 26 strikeouts across 23 2/3 innings.
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“It’s contagious,” Sears said. “You go out there and you want to do what the guys before you did, or top that. We’ve got a good group of starters that bounce off each other. We’re each different, but we can help each other out.”
