Mariners come up empty in 2-0 loss to Oakland

OAKLAND, Calif. – Shutout, nine runs, shutout.

It shouldn’t be the least bit surprising that a day after hitting four two-run homers, the Mariners were shut down by a pitcher, 2-0, that even knowledgeable fans might not have heard of before Saturday.

It also shouldn’t be stunning that the reasons the Mariners failed to muster any runs against A’s starter Kendall Graveman or the Oakland bullpen were due to situational hitting failures and baserunning mistakes.

And the least astonishing bit of news from the loss was that these failures came with Felix Hernandez on the mound.

Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at O.co Coliseum was like so many of Seattle’s previous losses – good pitching performance, but no offense because of a lack of execution and hitting with runners in scoring position.

This is who the Mariners are and how they’ve played.

In the midst of celebrating Friday night’s win where they hit four two-run homers in a 9-5 blowout, Logan Morrison sat at his locker in the once sewage-soaked cave that is the visitors’ clubhouse. He’d hit an early two-run homer, but he had a word or two of caution about the offensive outburst.

“We have to find a way to be more consistent and to do the little things right,” he said at the time. “Homers don’t always come around. So you’ve got to find a way to manufacture runs. We did hit the ball well today, but overall some of the things that have been (a problem) were still there tonight.”

With Seattle (37-44) not raining long balls into the outfield seats on Saturday, those things were more glaring.

Morrison took no pleasure in his premonition.

“As a whole I think we hit the ball better than the score book showed,” he said. “But it’s baseball. It sucks. As a whole, we have to do a better job of being patient and getting better pitches to hit. It’s frustrating for sure.”

Manager Lloyd McClendon tried to make sense of the game, but couldn’t.

“You think you are getting ready to take off and you come out and get shut out against a guy with decent stuff, but not overpowering stuff,” he said. “In that respect, it’s a little disappointing.”

Graveman (6-4) does deserve more than a modicum of credit. He pitched seven shutout innings, allowing five hits and issuing one walk with one strikeout. He wasn’t overpowering, but he got 10 ground-ball outs and gave up a handful of hard-hit balls.

He came into the game with a 5-4 record and 3.47 ERA and had allowed two runs or fewer in his last five outings. But opponents were batting .272 against him with a .736 OPS this season – so he was hittable. Just not for the Mariners.

The M’s could have gotten to Graveman in the first inning. With one out, Austin Jackson doubled to right-center and Robinson Cano drew a walk to put runners on first and second for Nelson Cruz.

But with Cruz at the plate, Jackson tried to steal third and was thrown out by catcher Stephen Vogt.

“That’s just a bad jump,” McClendon said. “You can’t go there. I understand he wants to be aggressive. The guy (Graveman) is slow (to home). But if you don’t get a good jump, you can’t go. We let him back into that inning.”

Hernandez wasn’t dominant, losing for the first time in Oakland in 13 straight starts. He was in scramble mode from the first inning on. The A’s had runners on base in six of his seven innings, thanks to an assortment of ground-ball hits.

With little fastball command, Hernandez managed to maneuver out of most of the jams.

He allowed a run in the first inning after giving up a single to Billy Burns, walking Stephen Vogt and allowing an RBI single from Ben Zobrist. But a failed double-steal attempt allowed him to get out of the inning.

The game stayed at 1-0 until the seventh when a leadoff single by Burns and a single from Vogt led to a sacrifice fly from Ben Zobrist.