A’s 4, Mariners 3: Chris Smith, 36, delivers in first major-league start; Alonso belts 20th home run.
SEATTLE — He wasn’t exactly blowing hitters away in his first-ever big-league start, yet Chris Smith turned in some nice work as a fill-in for Oakland on Saturday.
At 36 the oldest A’s pitcher ever to make his first bigleague start, Smith threw six solid innings and left with the game tied. The A’s went on to beat the Mariners 4-3 with the late-game heroics of Ryon Healy, who followed an intentional walk to Yonder Alonso by drilling a groundrule double to right off Edwin Diaz. That sent in Rajai Davis with the go-ahead run with two outs in the ninth.
“I love it, I love it,” Alonso said of Healy coming through after the intentional walk. “He’s a guy who’s a clutch player; we’ve seen it throughout the year.”
Though not involved in the decision, Smith was a terrific story Saturday. He’d actually retired from baseball at one point and returned to UC Riverside for his degree before playing independent ball and winter ball for two seasons, then signing a minorleague deal with the Padres in 2015 and the A’s in 2016.
“I’m the average white pitcher, that’s me to a T,” Smith said after arriving Friday. “Stay-at-home-dad pitcher, what you see is what you get. There are no tricks, no high velocity, nothing.”
Smith’s daughters, Charlotte, 6; Abigail, 5; and Grace, 2, were on hand with his wife, Lisa, and his mom, Theresa.
Smith had made 63 relief appearances in the majors, including 13 with Oakland last year, but he never had started before Saturday. Joe Pate, at 33 years, 334 days, was the previous oldest A’s first-time starter — that was in 1926.
Smith, whose fastball registered 86 mph most of the evening, allowed three runs and six hits, including a solo homer by Jarrod Dyson in the fifth that tied the game. Dyson doubled and scored on Jean Segura’s one-out double in the third, and Ben Gamel added an RBI single that inning.
“I thought he pitched great,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “I was hoping to get him into the sixth today and he got through six, so he did every single bit of his job and probably a little bit more. And it was fun to see.”
“I think I wasn’t predictable, and that’s what helped me,” Smith said, adding later, “I might be one and done, so I was really enjoying it.”
Smith, making a spot start because of Jharel Cotton’s issue with a callus, did hit 88 mph once.
“I saw it up there, I saw the snowman,” Smith said of the radar reading. “I hope my wife got a picture of it.”
Ryan Madson, Sean Doolittle and Santiago Casilla each worked scoreless innings in relief, with Doolittle earning the win and Casilla the save, his 15th in 19 chances.
The A’s scored first, with Healy leading off the second against Andrew Moore with a base hit, moving up on a single by Bruce Maxwell and scoring on Jaycob Brugman’s two-out hit.
Alonso, bound for Miami and the All-Star Game next week, walloped his 20th homer with two outs in the third, and Marcus Semien, who missed three months with a right wrist fracture, hit his fourth homer of the season in the fifth, his first since coming off the disabled list. Gamel, playing in left, nearly robbed Semien, though, coming inches from making a grab with a leap at the fence.