Big night by Cruz dooms Oakland
SEATTLE — Sean Manaea labored through the first few innings Friday at Safeco Field, then snapped into a much more effective form his last three innings.
By then, though, the Mariners had taken the lead and they — well, mostly Nelson Cruz — went on to a 7-2 win over the A’s, halting their four-game losing streak and eight-game home skid as well as Oakland’s threegame winning streak.
Cruz, tied for the majorleague lead with 68 RBIs, drove in five runs, three of them on a homer in the eighth off Liam Hendriks, No. 300 of Cruz’s career. He took a curtain call after the crowd bellowed “Cruuuz!”
Twenty six of Cruz’s homers have come against Oakland. He’s 11-for-28 against the A’s this year with four homers and 16
RBIs, and he’s 6-for-11 versus Manaea lifetime with two homers, six RBIs and four walks.
“He’s pretty scary in the box,” Manaea said. “He’s really, really big and, career-number wise, he’s doing pretty well off me. I’ll take that into account. At the end of the day that’s all up to me, and I have to be better about being aggressive to some guys and attacking them instead of hoping I get them out. That’s on me.”
Through four innings, Manaea threw 81 pitches, giving up seven hits and three runs. In his final three innings, he threw 22 pitches and gave up one infield single.
“I’ll tell you what, he gave us seven innings when it didn’t look like he might give us four, and he really should have given up one run,” manager Bob Melvin said, referring to a flubbed potential double play in the third that extended the inning before Cruz’s RBI single. “There are times he looks like he doesn’t have his good stuff and he ends up pitching like that. For a young kid, he’s come a long way in how he’s able to battle. He pitched well enough to win that game, for sure.”
Cruz provided an RBI single for the Mariners in the first and another in the third.
Kyle Seager’s flyball to center in the third put Seattle ahead when Rajai Davis did not immediately throw the ball in. Robinson Cano took off for home and scored on the sacrifice fly. Melvin said that Davis thought that was the third out of the inning.
Davis, whose playing time has tailed off substantially since rookie Jaycob Brugman arrived, walked and scored on Marcus Semien’s two-out, two-run double in the third. The A’s didn’t get another man in scoring position and recorded just three hits in all.
If the A’s had another backup center fielder, Davis might have joined Stephen Vogt and Trevor Plouffe in the designated-for-assignment category. Davis has a 29-game streak without an RBI, which is the longest of his career and the longest streak by an Oakland player since Allen Battle went 31 games without an RBI from April 19-Aug. 14, 1996.
Hendriks allowed a double to Mitch Haniger before departing, and Haniger scored on another sacrifice fly by Seager. The A’s bullpen has allowed at least one run in each of the past 12 games, their longest such streak since May 7-20, 2005, when they also went 12 in a row.
After missing more than a week with a knee infection that required hospitalization, rookie third baseman Matt Chapman is 1 for his past 18 with nine strikeouts. He struck out in all three of his at-bats Friday.
“He’s probably just trying a little too hard right now,” Melvin said. “It’s not an easy thing to do, sit for a while like that and a couple of days later you’re in the big leagues. Once he gets a couple of hits, he’ll be fine. His timing just might be off a little bit right now.”
Catcher Ryan Lavarnway made his first appearance with the A’s while Josh Phegley was away on paternity leave. Phegley will be back Saturday.