Seattle, WA (SportsNetwork.com) - Hisashi Iwakuma tossed 8 2/3 solid innings as the Seattle Mariners beat the Oakland Athletics, 6-2, on Saturday.

Iwakuma (8-4) was one out away from his first career shutout when he gave up a two-run homer to Brandon Moss. The right-hander gave up five hits and struck out eight.

"He's always good. He throws a lot of strikes, and then a lot of 'look like strikes,'" Moss said of Iwakuma. "He's got a really good split, he changes speeds, he can go up, he can go down. He's tough."

Robinson Cano and Kyle Seager homered for the Mariners, who have won the first two contests of this three-game series.

Oakland starter Jesse Chavez (7-6) allowed three runs on 10 hits with six strikeouts and two walks over 5 2/3 innings.

The A's recorded two of their five hits in the second inning. Josh Donaldson and Jed Lowrie hit consecutive one-out singles to put men on first and second, but Derek Norris and Eric Sogard struck out to strand them.

Seattle got on the board in the bottom half. Corey Hart doubled to left-center field and raced home on Dustin Ackley's single to center.

The Mariners tacked on two more runs in the fifth. Cano led off with a single and crossed the plate on Seager's one-out blast to right.

Cano's three-run homer off Jim Johnson in the eighth made it a 6-0 game.

"This is a team you want to beat," Cano said. "They're in first place, so this is the team you want to catch."

Iwakuma gave up a leadoff single to John Jaso in the ninth. He retired the next two batters before Moss smacked the first pitch he saw over the wall in right-center field. Yoervis Medina came on and recorded the final out.