Fans cheer as the solo home run ball from Seattle Mariners’ Jorge Polanco flies over the fence past Athletics right fielder JJ Bleday during the seventh inning of a baseball game Friday, Aug. 22, 2025, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

A’s Ninth Inning Charge Stopped Short in Seattle 3-2
By Mauricio Segura

The Athletics opened their night at T-Mobile Park with a clean, heavy swing and a little electricity. Brent Rooker saw Bryan Woo’s early offering in the first and lined it into the left center seats for his 26th home run, a quick jolt that set the tone for a crisp, pitcher-forward game. The M’s edged the A’s 3-2 at T Mobile Field in Seattle.

Luis Morales met the moment early, rolling through the Mariners order with a mix of ground balls and harmless air, helped by clean reads from Lawrence Butler in center and JJ Bleday in right. Through four innings the Green and Gold carried a 1-0 lead that felt sturdy, the kind of narrow edge that rewards patience and punishes mistakes.

Seattle’s answer arrived in the fifth in the form of a veteran’s swing. Eugenio Suárez turned on a pitch and sent a liner over the left field wall for his 40th, a no-nonsense shot that reset the scoreboard and the mood. Morales limited the damage there, but Woo matched him and then some.

The Mariners right-hander ran seven innings with only the early Rooker blast on his ledger, living at the knees and inducing a string of routine outs as the middle innings tilted toward the home dugout. Oakland-area memories have taught A’s fans not to trust one-run cushions on the road, and the seventh confirmed the suspicion.

After Morales handed things to Elvis Alvarado, Julio Rodríguez bounced out to first and then the gates opened. Josh Naylor got a heater he could lift and sent his 16th out to right center for a 2-1 Seattle lead. Two batters later Jorge Polanco rode a fly ball to almost the same neighborhood for his 19th, and the inning that began with a tie ended with the Mariners up 3-1.

The A’s flirted with a counterpunch in the top half thanks to an error by second baseman Cole Young that put Tyler Soderstrom aboard, but a deep fly from Jacob Wilson died in center and Butler’s hard grounder turned into a 4-6-3 double play, the kind of two-step that drains a dugout.

Still, the A’s kept pressing. In the eighth, with two outs, Brett Harris gave way to pinch hitter Carlos Cortes, who sliced a sharp double into right to jolt the visitors, only for Gabe Speier to enter and end it with a strikeout. Justin Sterner returned a steady bottom of the eighth, aided by a successful challenge that flipped an out-call at first into a single for J.P. Crawford, only for Tyler Soderstrom to gun Crawford down trying for second. That throw mattered more than it looked in the moment because it kept the deficit at two and set the stage for a final act that had real weight.

Andrés Muñoz took the ball for the ninth, the building braced for velocity, and the A’s refused to blink. Shea Langeliers struck out to start the inning, but Rooker lined a single to left to restart the heartbeat. Soderstrom followed with a ground-ball single to left, Rooker eased into second, and the game tilted. Wilson then shot a grounder up the middle for another single, Rooker scored, and manager Mark Kotsay sent in Colby Thomas to run.

Butler showed patience and drew a walk to load the bases, one out, the tying run ninety feet away and the go-ahead run on second against Seattle’s closer. Darell Hernaiz lifted a fly to center that did not travel far enough to challenge Rodríguez, and Muñoz finally slammed the door with a strikeout of Bleday, his last fastball good enough to finish a 3-2 Mariners win that felt like it travelled the long way around to get there.

For the Sacramento A’s, the night carried both the promise and the frustration that define close losses on the road. Rooker’s bat remains a force, Soderstrom stacked quality at-bats, and Wilson delivered under pressure. Morales gave them the shape of a win through five and change, but two swings in the seventh turned the ledger. Woo earned the quiet star, scattering traffic and refusing to yield anything after the first inning. Seattle’s bullpen teased the ninth with doubt and then survived it, which is usually the difference between a good flight home and replaying every pitch while the cabin lights dim.

The A’s will point to the little margins. A double play in the seventh stopped a budding answer. A routine fly in the ninth kept a runner anchored at third. Three swings defined Seattle’s offense, and the final one belonged to Muñoz with the game on the line. It was a narrow loss and a useful snapshot of why margins matter, not a moral victory, just a reminder that the road from one run up to one run short can be a brutal statement in the show.

Costa Rican-born Mauricio Segura has been covering sports in the Bay Area since 2001 for a variety of magazines and newspapers, as well as his own publication, Golden Bay Times.

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