Giants beat L.A. 2-1 after 7th-inning scuffle; A’s defeat Mariners 3-2.
The Mariners were expecting to do some serious damage in Oakland. They had swept a four-game series from first-place Houston, lined up their best starters for the first two games at the Coliseum and gleefully anticipated the return of Robinson Cano. The A’s weren’t fazed. After handing Marco Gonzales a loss in the opener, Oakland didn’t see much of James Paxton on Tuesday. He left to an injury after three batters, and the A’s rallied against nemesis Felix Hernandez and beat the Mariners 3-2 before 17,419 at the Coliseum.
When Blake Treinen retired Mike Zunino for the final out, the streaking A’s moved to just one game from first place and extended their lead on the Mariners in the wild-card race to 3½ games. The A’s are 38-12 since June 15, back when their deficit was 11½ games.
“We’re still in second place, so we’ve still got some work to do,” said shortstop Marcus Semien, who homered to open the bottom of the first inning. “Focus on winning every series we can. We won this series. If we win the next (against Houston), I think we’ll be in first place. You’ve got to focus on that.”
Jed Lowrie was a one-man wrecking crew, smacking his 100th career home run off Hernandez, a two-run shot in the third inning. Lowrie also hit a first-inning liner that forced Paxton from the game with a left forearm contusion. X-rays were negative, a sigh of relief for the Mariners.
Hernandez took the mound, which rarely is a good sign for A’s fans who have seen him dominate their team over the years, but the A’s saw Hernandez as a reliever for the first time Tuesday. In fact, it was struggling King Felix’s first career appearance in relief, and he pitched 52⁄3 innings, his biggest mistake a first-pitch curve he threw to Lowrie, whose 100th homer came two days after his 1,000th career hit.
“We’ve got a lot of baseball left,” Lowrie said when asked about closing in on first place. “We need to keep our eye on the prize.”
Mike Fiers, in his second start for the A’s, worked six innings, an impressive feat considering he nearly was scratched. Fiers had back and glute soreness (Fiers called it a muscle cramp), and manager Bob Melvin considered starting Yusmeiro Petit. Fiers took the ball and threw 78 pitches, giving up runs on Nelson Cruz’s two-out bloop single in the first and Cameron Maybin’s homer in the fifth.
“These feel like playoff games. This is the spot I want to be in,” said Fiers, who was acquired from Detroit on Aug. 6. “This team has a lot of trust in me to go out there, and it speaks loudly of this organization. I want to not let them down.”
Cano went 1-for-4 and played first base in his first game following his 80-game drug suspension. The infielder was suspended May 15 after testing positive for furosemide, a diuretic that can mask performance-enhancing drugs.
Third baseman Matt Chapman ended Cano’s eighthinning at-bat by spectacularly ranging a long distance in foul territory to reach over the rolled-up tarp in front of the seats to grab a popup.
“That’s a will to catch the baseball,” Melvin said. “He wasn’t going to be denied if he had to go through the tarp.”
Chapman said, “I was thinking if it was in the first row in the stands, I was going to go for it.”
Oakland’s defense was glorious. Aside from the Chapman catch, center fielder Ramon Laureano made a leaping grab of Maybin’s seventhinning drive to the warning track, and catcher Jonathan Lucroy threw out speedy Dee Gordon, who tried to steal after opening the eighth with a single.
In relief of Fiers, Ryan Buchter and Petit pitched the seventh, and Fernando Rodney worked the eighth.
Treinen got two quick outs in the ninth but gave up singles to Denard Span and Kyle Seager before Zunino grounded out to end the game.