Photo credit: @KPODFM

By Jerry Feitelberg

The Oakland A’s play the Seattle Mariners this weekend in Seattle. The A’s are 5-8 to start the season and have yet to win a series against an opponent. They went 1-3 against the LA Angels to start the season. They split a four-game series with the Texas Rangers and went 1-2 against the Angels last week in Anaheim. Angels’ rookie sensation Shosei Ohtani beat the A’s twice. The A’s then split a two-game set with the Los Angeles Dodgers,

The Mariners are in third place in the AL West with a record of 6-4. So far, they have played the Cleveland Indians, San Francisco Giants, Minnesota Twins, and Kansas City Royals. The series against the A’s will be the first against an AL West opponent.

The teams have announced the pitching matchups for the weekend series. The A’s will send Andrew Triggs to the hill Friday night. Triggs will be making his third start of the young season. Triggs has a record of 1-0 with an ERA of 2.53. In his last start against the Angels, Triggs went 5 2/3rds innings and allowed just 2 runs and 4 hits as he was credited with his first win.

Mike Leake will go for the Mariners. Leake, the former St. Louis Cardinal and San Francisco Giant, owns a record of 2-0 and has a 3.00 ERA. Leake has pitched 12 innings so far and has beaten the Indians and the Twins.

On Friday night, Kendall Graveman will make his fourth start. Things have not gone well for Graveman as he is 0-2 and has an ERA of 9.45. In his three starts, he has pitched a total of 13 and 1/3rd innings and has allowed four runs in each of the starts. Seattle’s lefty Marco Gonzales will oppose Graveman. Gonzales beat the Giants in San Francisco but struggled in his last outing against the Twins. His record stands at 1-1, and his ERA is 7.27.

Sunday will see a matchup of two very good pitchers. The A’s Sean Manaea (1-2, ERA 1.74) has pitched well in all three of his starts. He took the loss Tuesday night against the Dodgers. He gave up home runs to the first two hitters he faced,, but settled down and left the game trailing 2-0. The A’s offense was impotent against the Dodgers and gave him no run support as the A’s fell 4-0.

The Mariners ace, Felix Hernandez will handle the pitching chores against. Hernandez must salivate when he sees the guys in Green and Gold. King Felix has a career record of 25-9 in 46 starts. Felix is 2-1 so far and has beat the Royals last Tuesday, despite giving up three runs and six hits in 5 2/3 innings of work.

The Mariners will be without the services of Nelson Cruz (sprained right ankle), former A’s player Ryon Healy (Grade 2 right ankle sprain), outfielder Ben Gamel ( Right oblique sprain), and catcher Mike Zunino (left oblique sprain.)

The Mariners still have a potent lineup. Robinson Cano will be at second, Jean Segura at short, Kyle Seager at third, and Daniel Vogelbach will be at first base. Dee Gordon, in his first season in Seattle, will be in center field, Mitch Haniger will handle right field, and either Guillermo Heredia or Ichiro Suzuki will play left. The catching chores will be handled by David Freitas or Mike Marjama.

The Mariners’ closer is Edwin Diaz, and the bullpen consists of Dan Altavilla, Chasen Bradford, Nick Vincent, our old friend Marc Rzepczynski, Casey Lawrence, Juan Nicasio, and James Pazos.

The A’s offense got going Wednesday night in Los Angeles when they put 16 runs on the board and recorded 21 hits. They have a powerful lineup with Marcus Semien, Matt Chapman, Matt Olson, and Jed Lowrie handling the infield tasks. Matt Joyce will be in left against right-handed pitchers, Trayce Thompson will be in center, and Stephen Piscotty will be in right. Jake Smolinski and Mark Canha will be the backups. Jonathan Lucroy will handle the catching, but Bruce Maxwell will probably play in one of the games.

This would be a good time for the A’s to win a series and get closer to the .500 mark. The A’s know they can hit with power. Hopefully, they will continue the heavy hitting and not play they way they did last Sunday and Tuesday when they scored just one run and nine hits in 18 innings of action.