Mariners 1, A’s 0: Strong start by Daniel Gossett wasted in loss.
Daniel Gossett arrived from Triple-A Nashville and gave the A’s a lift Wednesday with a strong outing. His Oakland teammates couldn’t return the favor.
Gossett held the Mariners to one run in seven innings but received no support as the A’s fell 1-0. It came before an announced crowd of 6,991, a season low at the Coliseum.
“That’s about as confident as we’ve seen him,” manager Bob Melvin said of Gossett. “Velo was there, he used all his pitches, threw more changeups than we’ve seen . ... Best we’ve seen him pitch.
“We just didn’t do anything offensively, unfortunately.”
After scoring 27 runs in a four-game sweep of the Blue Jays in Toronto, the A’s have returned home to a troubling trend. They’ve scored two or fewer runs in seven consecutive home games — the franchise’s longest such streak since the 1917 Philadelphia A’s had an eight-game stretch.
One reason for the lull: The A’s have hit an MLB-best 47 homers in 27 games on the road, but have an MLB-worst 14 in 22 games at home. Four belong to Khris Davis, who before the game was placed on the 10-day disabled list with a strained groin.
“It’s probably too early to tell as far as the ‘KD’ effect with Khris not in there,” Melvin said. “I don’t have an answer for you the last couple of games.”
The A’s put just one runner in scoring position against Seattle left-hander Marco Gonzales — in the fourth, when Chad Pinder and Jed Lowrie drew consecutive walks. Pinder took third on Matt Chapman’s flyout to center, but Gonzales struck out Mark Canha and got Matt Olson to fly out to end the inning.
Lowrie reached base three times with two singles and a walk. Oakland’s only other hit was Matt Joyce’s pinch-hit single in the eighth.
It made a hard-luck loser of Gossett, whose seven innings matched his career high. Gossett was 4-0 with a 1.63 ERA in seven outings this season at Nashville but had struggled to replicate that success with Oakland, going 4-11 last year and posting an 11.05 ERA in two starts this April.
The right-hander said he made adjustments in Nashville, including slowing down his delivery and being aggressive in the strike zone. He threw firstpitch strikes to 17 of 27 batters Wednesday and finished with five strikeouts and a walk.
If “you don’t have anything to be confident about, fake it,” Gossett said. “You have to be confident on the mound in being aggressive and challenging hitters.”
Gossett allowed only four hits but paid for a leadoff double by Guillermo Heredia in the fourth. With Heredia on third, one out and the infield in, Kyle Seager hit a sharp grounder to shortstop Marcus Semien, who bobbled the ball as Heredia raced home.
Gossett got some defensive help from right fielder Stephen Piscotty, who robbed Mike Zunino of a homer with a leaping catch in the third. Piscotty also made a diving grab of John Andreoli’s flare in the seventh.