Mariners weather late storm, defeated Oakland Athletics 6-5
SEATTLE – Sean Manaea – and, later, Edwin Diaz – had as much trouble throwing strikes on Monday as the Mariners did getting hits.
And yet they scored six runs, enough to achieve victory on this chilly May evening against the Oakland Athletics, in spite of a near-meltdown in the ninth inning that made this one far more interesting than it needed to be.
Manaea, the A’s lefty starter, walked four batters in the first inning – including two with the bases loaded – and yielded a towering, two-run home run to Nelson Cruz in the second that helped the Mariners claim a 6-5 victory despite totaling only four hits – and only two in the final seven innings of this series opener before a crowd of 15,431 at Safeco Field.
One of those hits, though, was a two-run homer by Kyle Seager with one out in the eighth inning that gave closer Edwin Diaz a three-run cushion as he took the mound in the ninth. He needed it. Diaz walked four consecutive batters before exiting the game with the bases loaded and one out. Right-hander Tony Zych entered and got Khris Davis to ground out to shortstop for the second out, though it plated Oakland’s second run of the inning.
After an intentional walk to Yonder Alonso loaded the bases again with two outs, designated hitter Ryon Healy worked the count full before watching a called third strike to end the game.
The win helps ease some of the frustrations recently accumulated north of the border, where the Mariners (18-21) lost four consecutive games to the Toronto Blue Jays and scored only six runs total during the series.
Right-hander Yovani Gallardo allowed three runs in 6 1/3 innings to earn the victory. Manaea allowed two hits and struck out seven batters in five innings in the loss.
This still wasn’t a particularly encouraging offensive display – Manaea settled down after the first two innings and retired 12 of the final 13 batters he faced – but the Mariners nevertheless jumped to a 4-0 lead on Cruz’s blast in the second inning.
Oakland (16-22) put a dent in that margin with two homers of its own against Mariners starter Yovani Gallardo: one by slugger Khris Davis to dead center in the fourth, and another by catcher Stephen Vogt to right field that made it 4-3 in the fifth.
Gallardo left the game in the seventh inning after A’s shortstop Christian Pinder hit a sharp grounder off the glove of Kyle Seager that turned into a hustle double and put runners on second and third with one out.
Right-hander Dan Altavilla relieved Gallardo and promptly walked Rajai Davis, the No. 9 hitter, on four pitches to load the bases. Then he started 2-0 to leadoff hitter Matt Joyce. But Altavilla came back to strike out Joyce, then coaxed a groundout by Jed Lowrie to second baseman Taylor Motter – who had shifted into shallow right field against the left-handed hitter – to escape the jam unscathed.
Seager’s homer in the eighth came after Guillermo Heredia reached second base on a throwing error by Pinder.
The Mariners used three pitchers – recently activated right-hander Steve Cishek, left-hander Mark Rzepczysnki and right-hander Nick Vincent – to retire the A’s in the eighth, though Vincent yielded a two-out, ground-rule double to Healy before striking out Trevor Plouffe to end the inning.