By Morris Phillips
OAKLAND–This was a good week for the Oakland A’s—radio personality Mychael Urban made that declaration on his “Inside the Bigs” show Saturday morning—it just didn’t end good.
The A’s saw improving Kendall Graveman toss a clunker, allowing a career-worst 12 hits in a 14-3 blowout, that saw the A’s trailing 14-0 before a late field goal lent a measure of respectability. Graveman came in with just as many wins (10) as his pitching opponent, Felix Hernandez, but he left needing to go back to the drawing board.
“I just didn’t overall locate the ball as well as I have in the past,” Graveman said. “Just get back to it and continue to work and finish out the last couple strong and wash this one away.”
“It was just one of those games where he was a little bit off and didn’t have command of his fastball like he normally does,” manager Bob Melvin said of his pitcher.
While Graveman struggled, Hernandez cruised, winning for a 14th time in Oakland, tying Tommy John for the most wins by an opposing pitcher at the Coliseum. King Felix allowed six hits and a walk in six innings of work, but no runs. Four of the six hits he allowed came in the first two innings, when the A’s threatened but couldn’t break through.
Hernandez kept the A’s off balance with his assortment of breaking pitches in full effect. It hasn’t been the perennial Cy Young candidate’s best season, but when he’s on, he’s lethal. Against the A’s inexperienced lineup, and given the club’s offensive struggles at home, this one in the books early.
“When you give him a lead—I think it was up to six runs—he’s not going to let those slip away,” Mariners’ manager Scott Servais said. “He knows how to get deep into games. That’s why he’s Felix.”
Seven Mariners had at least two hits in the team’s 17-hit attack. Nelson Cruz had three hits and scored twice, Kyle Seager had a pair of hits including a solo shot in the seventh that Dennis Eckersley—the big head, run around the warning track version—had a bird’s eye view of in the seats in the right field corner. Seager’s shot made it 9-0 and the normally wide-eyed Eck appeared downcast as well watching the slugger’s ball careen around the field level staircase to his left.
The Mariners got two in the first inning, four in the third, two in the sixth, and six runs in the seventh to build their 14-0 lead. A’s reliever J.B. Wendleken got beat up pretty good in the seventh, allowing four hits and five earned runs. Wendleken’s ERA sits at 10.80 after seven forgettable appearances—all in A’s losses—where he’s allowed 17 hits in 11 plus innings of work.
The A’s got a little back late, but they needed a fielding error from Seager to push across the first run in the seventh. In the eighth, Ryon Healy connected, his two-run blast was his eighth of his abbreviated big league season.
The Mariners have won three straight to get within three games of the second wild card spot, but that just leaves them on the fringes of that race with the red-hot Yankees, Tigers and Astros among the five teams on the list above them. The A’s finished their “good” week at 3-3, with good encompassing several eye-popping performances from their youngsters. The A’s registered a pair of nice late-inning victories on Sunday and Tuesday, and saw Jharel Cotton make an impressive big league debut on Wednesday, while drawing comparisons to Pedro Martinez.
Still the A’s sit 60-81, and with their 41st loss at home will register consecutive losing seasons at the Coliseum for the first time in the 21st century.
On Sunday, Raul Alcantara gets his second shot at respectability, looking for a major upgrade on his first big league appearance in which he couldn’t finish three innings. James Paxton will go for the Mariners, he’s won both of his previous starts against the A’s.
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