SEATTLE – King Felix continued his dominance over the A’s and he struck out 11 A’s batters and handed the A’s the fourth loss of the season with a final score of 6-4. The A’s mounted a nice rally in the bottom of the eighth as they were able to snag four runs but came up short when Coco Crisp struck out to end the game in the top of the ninth. The loss also ended the A’s four game winning streak.

Hernandez (3-0) didn’t allow a hit until the top of the fourth when Jed Lowrie his a single into the outfield and Josh Donaldson was able to run out a grounder and landed him safe at first.

The Mariners got on the board first when Robinson Cano drove in Abraham Almonte from third when he grounded a ball to Daric Barton who hesitated and didn’t get the ball to Milone who was going to cover first in time to get Cano. In the bottom of the fourth, Seattle received two gift runs from the A’s on two errors committed by Donaldson at third and Lowrie at short.

Dustin Ackley who was on second was able to score when Mike Zunino hit a ground ball to Donaldson that he threw wide to Barton and went past first base and landed Zunino at second. On the very next pitch, Almonte hit a sharp grounder to Lowrie that ricocheted off his arm and allowed Zunino to score from second and make it a 3-0 Seattle lead.

Zunino hit a two run shot and Brad Miller got himself solo homer in the bottom of the sixth to give the Mariners a what seemed insurmountable 6-0 lead.

The A’s were able to finally score in the 8th when Fernandez hit Daric Barton to start the inning then gave up a single to Eric Sogard. After the hit batter and single the Mariners who appeared to have the game in hand, sent Fernandez to the bench to make way for the relievers to take care of the game. Unfortunately for Seattle, the A’s had just started to make this game interesting.

New Mariner reliever Lucas Luetge came in to face Sam Fuld and walked him on four straight pitches to load the bases. Sensing that this could get out of hand if something happened, the Mariners pulled Luetge and put in Danny Farquhar to face Jed Lowrie. New pitcher but same results, Lowrie was walked and brought in Barton for the A’s first score of the game. After a Donaldson strike out, Brandon Moss hit a broken bat single over the jumping Cano and scored Sogard to make it 6-2 and keep the bases loaded. Cespedes came up to the plate and hit a grounder to third that was sent to Cano for the second out but Cespedes was able to beat the throw to first and that allowed Fuld to score to make it 6-3. On the next batter, Charlie Furbush who was now in for relief for Seattle threw a wild pitch that hit the back stop and brought in Lowrie to make it 6-4. Unfortunately Callaspo, who was at bat hit a high pop to end the inning and the A’s momentum.

Tommy Milone who started his first game of the season performed excellently as he went five innings and struck out 7. What has to be a highlight for the A’s tonight is that Jim Johnson who was recently relieved of his closing duties came in for the final two innings of the game and pitched them perfect and struck out four.

Oakland and Seattle head back to SafeCo park tomorrow night when the Sonny Gray  (1-0, 0.75 ERA) takes on Erasmo Ramirez (1-1, 5.73 ERA), game time 6:10pm PST.