OAKLAND — All signs pointed to an uplifting victory and a celebration of Sean Manaea’s first career win on the mound.
Instead, the A’s were left to ponder a sweep at the hands of the Seattle Mariners and one downer of a homestand.
They fell 9-8 Wednesday afternoon as their bullpen couldn’t protect a four-run lead after Manaea left the game to start the sixth inning. In a reversal of the first two games of this series, the A’s offense delivered in this one, tying a season high for runs scored and batting around in a six-run fifth inning. But just as the hitters showed signs of life, the A’s short-circuited in another facet.
The Mariners began chipping away at an 8-4 deficit in the sixth, scoring two runs off Ryan Dull, including Dae-Ho Lee’s first homer of the game. They scored three more times off Sean Doolittle and John Axford in the seventh including Lee’s second long ball — a two-run blast off Axford — that put Seattle out front 9-8.
The series provided a glimpse of two American League West teams headed opposite directions right now. The Mariners have won 14 of their past 19 and avenged a sweep by the A’s in Seattle in early April. Oakland, after taking two of three from Houston, wound up with a 2-4 record on this six-game homestand, and continues to search for answers in front of the home fans.
The A’s fell to 13-16 overall and 5-11 at the Coliseum, the worst home record in the American League.
Starting pitching report
Manaea’s day was going well through four innings. He held Seattle off the scoreboard and stranded two runners in scoring position in both the third and the fourth. He took a 2-0 lead into the fifth and retired his first two hitters before trouble hit. The next five Mariners got hits off him as the visitors struck for four runs to take the lead. That sequence included Nelson Cruz’s monster two-run homer to straightaway center, a blast that cleared the first level of luxury suites and reached the seats in the second deck. MLB Statcast measured the homer at 435 feet, but that seemed to short-change it judging from the naked eye.
In his second career start, Manaea went five innings and allowed four runs on seven hits with six strikeouts and one walk. It sure looked like his first major league victory was coming his way until the bullpen surrendered an 8-4 lead.
Bullpen report
Axford (2-1) suffered his first defeat in an A’s uniform, but the game really began to turn in the sixth, when Dull couldn’t get a shutdown inning after the A’s took the lead with their six-run rally. Ryan Madson did come up big in the ninth, working out of a bases-loaded, no-out jam to keep it a one-run game.
At the plate
The A’s rang up their biggest scoring inning of the season with their six-run fifth. That included run-scoring hits from Jed Lowrie, Billy Butler and Chris Coghlan, not to mention some sloppy Mariners defense that helped the cause. Marcus Semien homered for his team-high seventh long ball in the third. Butler had two RBI in a rare start at DH. But the Mariners retired 14 of 15 batters after Coghlan’s run-scoring hit in the fifth.
In the field
Reddick’s tapper in front of the mound in the fifth could have been a home-to-first double play. Instead, Hernandez couldn’t find the handle on the ball, a run scored and that was the first of two Mariners errors that aided the A’s six-run rally that inning. Oakland wasn’t spotless in the field either with two errors. Jed Lowrie misplayed a ball at second base and Stephen Vogt had a throwing error in the sixth.
Attendance
The announced turnout was 16,238.
Up next
The A’s pack their bags for another three-city road trip that begins Friday in Baltimore. They send Rich Hill (3-3, 2.53) to the mound in the 4:05 p.m. opener against Ubaldo Jimenez (1-3, 5.20). On Saturday, it’s Jesse Hahn (1-0, 0.00) vs. Mike Wright (1-2, 5.40) at 4:05 p.m. Then Kendall Graveman (1-3, 4.40) matches up with Chris Tillman (3-1, 2.81) on Sunday at 10:35 a.m. All three games will air on CSN California.
