A’s lose in underwhelming fashion to Mariners
OAKLAND » The Oakland A’s final home stand, one key in launching themselves back into the wild card, did not start off with a bang, but a whimper. With the season closing and the postseason window along with it, every loss is a gut punch
The Seattle Mariners, also still right in the thick of the American League wild card race, looked a little hungrier to close the gap, handing the A’s a 4-2 loss on Monday night in front of a season-low — in a post-COVID restriction crowd — of 4,068.
Sean Manaea didn’t have his best stuff, and the Mariners made him pay dearly. The A’s left-handed starter lasted five innings, but gave up eight hits with four runs allowed. Seattle tacked on three runs in a four-hit, one-walk inning — Ty France’s RBI single and Kyle Seager’s two-run double. Seager drove in another run in the fifth inning.
Though Domingo Acevedo and Sam Moll could keep the A’s within striking distance in their innings of relief, the A’s had no fight in them to close the gap against left-hander Tyler Anderson. Chad Pinder and Khris Davis combined for back-to-back doubles to open up the third inning, and it looked like a rally was forming with a run on the board and one in scoring position. But Elvis Andrus hit into a sacrifice bunt to move Davis to third, then Josh Harrison and Starling Marte hit Anderson’s first pitches for outs to end the inning with nothing more.
And the A’s had nothing more after that. Getting four hits total against Anderson.
With Anderson out of the game in the eighth, the A’s tacked a run on reliever Diego Castillo through a three straight hits from Andrus, Harrison and Marte. Seattle manager Scott Servais called on right-hander Paul Sewald to strike out Matt Olson looking at a slider that hit perfectly the outside corner and Matt Chapman on three straight fastballs to strand the runners. The A’s left five on base.