Mariners Noon Number: 8

Despite giving up nine hits and a walk in just 4 1/3 innings, Seattle Mariners starter James Paxton still struck out eight in Thursday’s loss to the Oakland Athletics.

It was somewhat of a weird outing for Paxton. At times he appeared dominant and at others, quite shaky.

With two outs in the first, Paxton ran a three-ball count to slugger Khris Davis. But he came back with a pair of 97 mph four seamers that Davis couldn’t handle, then finished him off with a cutter. In the second, he got Trevor Plouffe to whiff on a nasty knuckle curve and Chad Pinder swung through the cutter.

In the third, three consecutive singles scored one run, and when Mitch Haniger’s throw to the infield took a fluky bounce off second base, another run came in. Easy to complain about that, but when Ryon Healy’s ground ball stayed fair of third and got through to the outfield for a double, the mistake was compounded.

Paxton managed a calm 1-2-3 inning in the fourth, but ran into more trouble in the fifth – again, partly thanks to a weird defensive play. Rajai Davis laced a clean single to center where Leonys Martin dropped to a knee to field…only it went right through the wickets. It’s almost as if he tried to make it look like he was playing conservatively only to botch it on purpose.

Anyway, Paxton had lost the location on his curve by then and the A’s laid back on the fastball. Jed Lowrie ripped a double, Davis walked and Healy made hard contact on a single to left and manager Scott Servais had seen enough.

The offense got Paxton off the hook, but the bullpen imploded too. Now 1-8 on the road, the M’s are going to have to find a way to shake that off if they still see themselves as contenders.