OAKLAND, Calif. – All of the things that have made the Mariners successful this season – solid starting pitching, quality defense, sound baserunning and just enough timely hitting – were mostly absent on Saturday afternoon.
The Mariners lost for the first time in 11 games at the Oakland Coliseum and it was a deserved loss.
With the bases loaded and no outs in the bottom of the 10th, Sheldon Neuse hit a high-hopping groundball to the right of the mound. Mariners reliever Diego Castillo couldn’t field the ball cleanly and the A’s had a 4-3 walk-off victory.
It was just the Mariners’ 15th loss in 42 games decided by one run.
The Mariners failed to score in the top of the 10th. Automatic runner Ty France made a costly decision, running to third base on Mitch Haniger’s hard ground ball to shortstop for the second out of the inning. With Haniger on first base, J.P. Crawford’s hard line drive was right at second baseman Jonah Bride, who was playing in shallow right field.
The Mariners scored just two runs against A’s starter James Kaprielian despite having base runners in all five of the innings he pitched.
Julio Rodriguez led off the game with a triple and scored on France’s sacrifice fly to center.
The Mariners used a similar formula for a 2-0 lead in the fourth. Eugenio Suarez tripled off the wall in right-center and Adam Frazier scalded a ball to deep left field that Tony Kemp made a fantastic catch on the warning track. Instead of an RBI double, it was a sac fly.
But the two runs were all that Kaprielian allowed over five innings despite issuing four walks.
The Mariners got a scare in the fourth when Sean Murphy ripped a line drive back at the mound, striking Logan Gilbert in the lower back. After talking with an athletic trainer and manager Scott Servais, Gilbert remained in the game and immediately started a double play on ground ball back to the mound off the bat of Stephen Vogt.
All three of the runs scored off Gilbert came in a fifth that won’t make the Mariners’ defensive highlight reels. Frazier booted a ground ball off the bat of Vimael Machin to start the inning, and Bride followed with a single to left.
Gilbert thought he had the first out when Nick Allen hit a soft liner to right field. But the late-afternoon sun was right in Jake Lamb’s face in right field. Lamb didn’t get a proper read on it and it bounced in front of him for a run-scoring single.
After Cal Stevenson sacrifice bunted the runners into scoring position, Tony Kemp sneaked a single up the middle through the drawn-in infield to score two runs. Gilbert ended the inning by striking out Seth Brown and getting Murphy to pop out in foul territory.
Gilbert pitched five innings, allowing three runs (two earned) on six hits with no walks and four strikeouts.