By Morris Phillips

If navigating a very difficult first week of the season is any indication, the A’s could again be a force in the AL West in 2014.

The A’s homered their way past the Mariners, 6-3, on Sunday to finish the first home stand with a 3-3 record. No great shakes, but given that the A’s dealt with rain outs, blown saves, King Felix, seven guys on the disabled list and another Opening Day loss, a .500 start doesn’t seem deflating at all.

“It was definitely an odd week with all the rainouts,” Brandon Moss said. “It feels like it’s been more than a week with all the time down that we’ve had.”

The jumbled nature of things seemed to play into the A’s rough start Sunday. The A’s fell behind 3-0 as Daric Barton committed an error, starter Sonny Gray wasn’t quite on his game, Coco Crisp’s slow reaction to a single by Robinson Cano allowed the former Yankee to reach second base, and John Jaso whiffed on a passed ball.

“Whether its days of non-batting practice and not being on the field or whatever, there’s no excuse to not have some focus early on,” manager Bob Melvin admitted.

But right after the A’s looked bad, they looked good. Seattle’s Erasmo Ramirez missed location on his slider and Moss deposited the offering into the right field bleachers with a pair of runners aboard to tie the game. Moss’ homer was his first after a very encouraging spring, and showed the beauty of the A’s newly minted designated hitter: if the pitcher makes a mistake, Moss hits them as long and as far as anybody.

Gray settled down after that, throwing three scoreless frames that took the A’s through the sixth. The bullpen trio of Luke Gregerson, Sean Doolittle and Jim Johnson allowed just two hits to close it out, and the A’s now look forward to their first road set in Minneapolis, which is expecting clear skies and moderate temperatures in what hopefully will be a return to normalcy for the road team.

Sunday’s game had a few crowd pleasing plays as well allowing the A’s fans to settle in as well. Kyle Seager’s ground ball down the first base line jumped off the first base bag and into Gray’s glove for an unassisted ground out. Sam Fuld–battling to stay at major league level with roster moves anticipated for the road swing—made a diving catch in right field. And Yoenis Cespedes hit his first home run of the season to cap the A’s scoring for the day in the eighth.

“Some at-bats certainly are a lot better than we saw in the spring, and if he continues to stay up the middle and the other way, he’ll see better results,” Melvin said of Cespedes.

In the Twins’ home opener on Monday afternoon, the A’s will hand the ball to Scott Kazmir, looking to build on his solid A’s debut on Wednesday. The Twins will open their home campaign with Kevin Correia on the hill.