Giants Too Much for DH-Less A’s

The Oakland Athletics lost part of their offense as soon as they came to 3Com Park and had to play in the National League park without their designated hitter.

And their pitchers couldn’t match the throwing--or hitting--of their San Francisco counterparts.

Kirk Rueter pitched 5 1/3 shutout innings before leaving because of shoulder tightness and had a two-out RBI single to start a four-run fourth as the Giants beat the Athletics, 8-0, on Saturday, extending their success in interleague play.

“It makes you feel pretty good as a pitcher when you can get two-out hits to keep rallies alive,” Rueter said. “I just tried to make contact, put the bat on the ball and luckily it went up the middle.”

Reliever Rich Rodriguez also singled in the seventh for his third career hit and first career RBI, helping the Giants improve to 20-11 in interleague games. Oakland’s pitchers had no hits.

John Jaha, a big part of Oakland’s offense as a designated hitter, has been little more than a spectator in San Francisco because of the loss of the DH at the National League park.

“I hate it,” he said. “I wish they wouldn’t play interleague games at all.”

Still, he is puzzled by the offensive slump of the Athletics, who are scoreless in their last 19 innings.

Snow and Bill Mueller each added two-run singles for San Francisco, 6-4 against Oakland in interleague games.

It was the eighth consecutive road loss for the Athletics, their longest streak away from home since losing a franchise-record 12 in a row from Sept. 5, 1995 to April 9, 1996.

Rueter (5-2) struck out two and walked none in winning a third consecutive decision.

Rodriguez went 1 2/3 innings and Julian Tavarez finished up to complete the combined eight-hitter. The Giant bullpen has pitched 25 consecutive scoreless innings. The Athletics have not scored in 18 innings.

Mike Oquist (5-4) went 4 2/3 innings and gave up four runs and five hits. He struck out five and walked three and matched shutout innings with Rueter until the fifth.

On Friday night, J.T. Snow hit a one-out sacrifice fly to score the winning run in the 15th inning of a 4-3 victory that tied for the second-longest interleague game.

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Giants

Next series for Angels

Who: San Francisco Giants

Where: at San Francisco

When: Monday, 7 p.m.

Tuesday, 1 p.m.

Wednesday, 12:30 p.m.