WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Maybe it’s a Northern California thing.
For the first time in nearly a month, the Seattle Mariners experienced the feeling of losing consecutive games after falling 7-6 in 10 innings to the Athletics on Monday night in the opener of a three-game series.
The last time the M’s dropped back-to-back games was the weekend of April 4-6 when they were a battered and frustrated club leaving San Francisco after being swept by the Giants in three painful losses. It says something about what they’ve done over the past 28 days that leading into Monday’s game any loss was immediately followed by a victory.
But after losing Sunday’s series finale in Texas and dropping Monday’s opener that run came to an end.
The M’s took a 6-5 lead in the top of the 10th when Cal Raleigh aggressively tagged up and scored from third on Miles Mastrobuoni’s fly ball to left field. But the lead didn’t last long as Jacob Wilson singled on the first pitch of the bottom of the inning from M’s closer Andrés Muñoz to score JJ Bleday. It was the first run — earned or unearned — allowed this season by Muñoz in his 17th appearance.
Muñoz walked Nick Kurtz and former Mariner Luis Urias reached when catcher’s interference was called on Raleigh. But then Muñoz was at his best, striking out Lawrence Butler looking, getting Brent Rooker swinging after falling behind 3-1 in the count and getting Tyler Soderstrom looking to send the game to the 11th.
Seattle did nothing in the top of the 11th and in the bottom of the inning Wilson’s single off Casey Legumina scored Soderstrom and ended the M’s first game in the A’s temporary minor league home on a night that at times had a minor league feel.
The focus for Seattle after this loss will be another shaky start by Bryce Miller where he continued to struggle with some aspects of his start. In every outing there’s been something off. A lack of control. A drop in velocity. Some arm soreness. Some back soreness.
There isn’t a start yet this year where Miller has put together the package that made him relatively consistent and at times overpowering last season. Something’s been amiss and it continued against the A’s.
This time, it was Miller’s inability to finish off batters and led to some deeper counts and longer innings. When Miller found himself in an advantageous count, he simply couldn’t put hitters away. His only strikeout came on a splitter that Bleday unsuccessfully waved through a splitter in the fourth inning. It was Miller’s fewest strikeouts since July 10 last year against San Diego. But that night, Miller threw six shutout innings against the Padres.
Against the A’s, Miller watched the batter reach base six times among the 20 batters he faced when there were two strikes against the hitter. Rooker was hit by a pitch, Soderstrom singled and Miguel Andujar hit a sacrifice fly to score a run in the first inning, all three actions coming with two strikes.
Bleday doubled on a 3-2 pitch in the second and scored on Wilson’s RBI single, also with two strikes. And leading off the fourth inning, Shea Langeliers homered to left field just out of the reach of Mastrobuoni’s leap at the wall on a 1-2 pitch.
Entering Monday, Miller had allowed just nine hits in 74 plate appearances this season in two-strike situations. Miller needed 94 pitches to finish four innings in his shortest outing of the season and one of eight starts in his career where he didn’t pitch into the fifth inning.
Carlos Vargas worked two solid innings of relief, but the A’s took a 5-4 lead in the seventh on Rooker’s leadoff double and Langeliers eventual sacrifice fly against Collin Snider.
Offensively, the M’s again got most of the production from the bottom of the batting order. Ben Williamson had a pair of two-out RBI singles that were both well placed and neither hit particularly hard.
Williamson floated a two-out single to center field that capped the M’s four-run third inning that came with an exit velocity of 68.5 mph. His RBI single in the eighth inning was even more unlikely, a 65.5 mph fluttering flair that fell into a triangle in shallow right field no one could get to. Cal Raleigh scored and the Mariners were even at 5-5.
Williamson’s hit in the third came at the end of an inning where nine batters came to the plate and most of the damage came with two outs. Jorge Polanco had a one-out RBI single but Rowdy Tellez’s double, Mastrobuoni’s single and Williamson’s single all came with two outs and plated runs that gave the M’s a 4-2 lead at the time.
The M’s had a chance to take the lead in the eighth after Williamson’s hit, but Leo Rivas hit a fly ball to center field. In the ninth, J.P. Crawford and Julio Rodríguez walked against A’s flamethrower Mason Miller, the second coming with two outs. But Miller was able to strike out Raleigh on a slider after Raleigh fouled off five of the first six pitches of the at-bat.