Cahill, Barton lead A’s past Bucs

Associated Press

OAKLAND, Calif.

Trevor Cahill hasn’t allowed himself to think about his All-Star status. After opening the season on the disabled list, he wasn’t sure he’d even be back in Oakland. These days he’s the staff ace.

Cahill allowed two hits and struck out a career-high 10 in 72/3 innings and Daric Barton had three doubles and matched his career high with four RBIs and the Athletics earned a 5-0 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates on Saturday night.

Cahill (7-2) walked three as the A’s won two in a row for the first time since winning four straight May 26-29.

Cahill improved to 5-0 over his past eight starts and has lowered his ERA to 2.88. He’s allowed 13 earned runs over his past 501/3 innings.

Kurt Suzuki homered as the A’s remained unbeaten in eight games against the Pirates.

Daniel McCutchen (0-3), recalled earlier in the day to replace Zach Duke, lasted six innings. He gave up four runs and seven hits, walking two and striking out two.

“Early on I had some jitters and some nerves,” McCutchen said. “I kind of sped everything up and didn’t give myself a chance the first couple of innings. It’s something to build off of. It would have been a whole different game if I was able to get strike one with the fastball. Pitching behind in the count I was forced to throw too many fastballs.”

Pirates manager John Russell felt McCutchen did some good things.

“He did OK,” Russell said. “He’d get two quick outs and had trouble putting them away. Two-out hits and two-out runs.”